iJjLXJL
SALONICA AND AFTER
THE SIDESHOW THAT
ENDED THE WAR
BY
H. COLLINSON OWEN
Editor of The Balkan News, and Official Correspondent
in the Near East
With a Foreword by
GENERAL SIR GEORGE MILNE, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.
Commander-in-Chief of the
British Sai^onica Force
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXIX.
J5^?
.^
0?
TO ALL RANKS OP
THK BRITISH SALONICA FORCES
AND TO THE MEMORY OP THEIR COMRADES
WHO FELL IN MACEDONIA.
These men in our Eastern Armies have had the dust
and toil, without the laurel, of the race to victory."
—Th4 Times.
FOREWORD
This book, written by the only member of the
British Press who has devoted his whole time to
the Macedonian Front, will be welcomed by the
friends and relatives of all ranks of the British
Salonica Army, and of those who have laid down
their lives for their country in a little known
part of the Balkans.
It will help to lift the veil of mystery which
hung over the doings of the Army, due to the lack
of publicity given to those events in Macedonia
which ultimately led to the defeat in the field of
the Bulgarian Army, worn out by three years of
constant and harassing warfare.
The chapters dealing with the attacks on the
Doiran position summarise the great difficulties
which had to be surmounted by men whose
strength was being slowly sapped by prolonged
residence in the most unhealthy portion of Europe,
^■4C7;jj
but whose esprit de corps was of the highest and
whose faith in ultimate victory never faltered.
This book may help some to see in proper per-
spective how the crowning achievement of long
and weary vigil in a secondary theatre of opera-
tions struck at the Achilles heel of the Central
Powers and materially aided in their rapid collapse
during the dramatic Autumn of 191 8.
-^^srv h^^-^^-*-^
General,
Advanced General Headquarters,
Guvesne, Macedonia.
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
The publication of this book, which was written in the
earher part of the present year, was delayed for some
months owing to the Author being abroad. But this
proves to have been a happy thing, as in the meantime
Ludendorff has given us his Memoirs, and these support in
signal fashion all that is here claimed for the Balkan Front,
and show that the sub-title, " The Sideshow that Ended
the War," is in no sense an exaggeration, but is a plain
statement of military fact.
Had the book been published earlier in the year, no doubt
many people would have taken exception to this description,
and said that the Author was too easily carried away by his
enthusiasm for his subject. But if anybody knows exactly
why our enemies crumbled up so suddenly and dramatically
Ludendorff should. We will examine very briefly what he
says on the subject of the break-through on the Balkan
Front in September, 1918.
Writing of the Allied 1918 offensive on the Western
Front, Ludendorff says {Times, August 22nd, 1918) : —
" August 8 was the black day of the German Army in the
history of this war. This was the worst experience that I
had to go through except for the events that, from Septem-
ber 15 onwards, took place on the Bulgarian Front and
sealed the fate of the Quadruple Alliance,'^
The comment of the Times on Ludendorff 's own descrip-
tion of the march of events on the Western Front is as
follows : —
" The other fact that stands out was the defeat of the
Bulgarian Army, a fact which in Ludendorii's mind seems
completely to have overshadowed the sensational victory
of the British Army at Cambrai at the end of September.'*
Another Press comment on the same point was : *' When
Bulgaria, too, went, he threw up the sponge, and even
the tremendous British victory in forcing the Hindenburg
Line is dismissed in a few words as a mere incident in the
general ruin.**
LudMidorff himself continues : — " It very soon became
clear that from Bulgaria nothing more was to be expected.
. . . . The position in the field could only become
decidedly worse. It was impossible to tell whether this
process would be slow or precipitate. The probability was
that events would come to a head within a measurable time,
as indeed actually happened in the Balkan Peninsula and
on the Austro-Hungarian Front in Italy.
*' In this situation I felt incumbent upon me the heavy
responsibility of hastening the end of the war and of pro-
moting decisive action on the part of the Government.**
The British Salonica Force could not desire a more
striking tribute to its long devotion and ultimate triumphal
success than these few plain words from Ludendorff.
Together with the famous letter from Hindenburg in which,
speaking of the Bulgarian collapse, he said, ** It is no longer
possible for us to resist; we must ask for an armistice,'*
they demolish all that was ever said in criticism of the value
of the Salonica Army and at the same time lift that Force
to its rightful place in the history of the Great War.
H. C. O.
London, August, 1919.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ^^^
X. — Getting there 1
II.— When the B.S.F. was Young ... 12
III. — Salonica Nights 27
IV.— A Day IN Town 40
v.— The "B.N." 60
VI. — Friends up Country 68
VII.—" The Coveted City " 78
Vm.— The Fire 90
IX. — Two Balkan Days — January and
July ... 105
X. — The Balkan Stage 117
XI. — Ourselves AND OUR Allies 128
XII. — The Army from Without 144
XIII. — The Conversion of Greece 157
XIV. — Mud and Malaria 174
XV. — Home on Leave 189
XVI. — The Allied Operations 200
XVII.— DoiRAN 216
XVIIL— Victory 288
XIX.— The Pursuit 260
XX. — . . . . And After 269
Appendix I. — Work of the 16th Wing,
R.A.F 279
Appendix II. — A Note on Malaria 289
Index 291
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
General Sir George Milne, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., at a Horse Show
at Guvesne Frontispiece
Salonica in the days of the Turk: a photograph taken in 1911.
It is interesting as showing the crenellated walls round the
White Tower which still existed at that time ... 16
Salonica in the days of the Allies. A section of the crowd
listening to the French Band in the Place de la Liberte . 46
Some of the Comitadjis who worked for the British in the
Struma Valley 4«5
A scene in Jean, Tchimiski Street, December, 1916 ... 60
The Limonadji, or street lemonade seller 60
Macedonian shepherd on the summit of Mount Kotos (4,000
feet) overlooking Salonica Harbour 75
Salonica the day after the fire 96
British Transport in Macedonia : A typical road on a summer
day 112
Our Balkan Allies : Serbs at Mikra, after landing from Corfu,
1916 128
Evzones of the Venizelist Army leaving for the Front, 1917 . 128
Macedonian mud : Serbian Artillery horses rescuing a Ford car 176
The Pass Road from Bralo down to Itea 194
Macedonian ** Ladies " breaking stones for road-making . . 194
The British Balkan Front from Gjevgjeli to Orfano . . . 208
Doiran, showing Tortoise Hill, Jumeaux Ravine and Petit
Couronn^ on the left just above the lake. From here the
hills rise upwards, over Doiran Town, to Grand Couronne,
with its scarred crest. Dominating Grand Couronne is
seen the undulating Pip Ridge, and beyond this again the
snow-clad mountains of Serbia 224
The British Fleet passing up the Dardanelles. Photo taken
from the Flagship Superb, showing Temeraire, Lord Nelson
and Agamemnon astern 272
A map of the Balkan Front . . . . . End paper
viii.
CHAPTER I.
Getting There.
*' Whoever would have dreamed of coming to
Salonica?" sighed a melancholy and homesick young
captain from up the line. We were sitting in the
famous cafe of Floca — famous not for any startling
merits on the part of Floca Freres, but just because it
was our premier cafe, and the rendezvous of every-
body in general — and the world must have a rendez-
vous, even in Salonica. Outside, through the newly
glazed windows, we looked upon the charred skeletons
of the buildings destroyed in the great fire — a conflagra-
tion which should really be referred to as the Great Fire,
and will always so be thought of by those who saw it.
And inside the flies were buzzing merrily — or fiercely —
for the heat had come early, and they were in the first
flush of their spring ardour. They settled on our hands,
heads and faces, tickling, biting and enraging us. They
buzzed round in clouds exploring milk jugs, beer pots,
sticky cakes on plates {gateaux mouches, as somebody
wittily called them) and generally behaving as all flies
in the Near East do, as if to make up by their extrava-
gance of vigour for the natural indolence of the inhabi-
tants. And the flies were merely the sauce piquant e, so
to speak, to the general boredom and weariness of men
who had been living for years without leave in a dis-
tressing country which they heartily disliked. The
captain from up the line — like many others — had not
seen home for over two and a half years. He was
1 B
SALONICA AND AFTER
weary of Macedonia, and his heart longed fiercely for
home — "Blighty" on a wet evening if you like, with
the lights turned low and all the theatres showing their
"House Full" boards, but "Blighty" under any con-
ditions if the impossible could only happen. And the
sigh that welled up from him de Profundis, "Whoever
would have dreamed of coming to Salonica?" spoke
volumes.
But to pass from his melancholy, which was a very
common symptom in Macedonia, whoever would have
dreamed of coming to Salonica ? True it is now a
household name, like " Plugstreet," Mesopotamia, and
many other blessed words. But before the war who
could have taken his atlas and, putting down his finger,
said triumphantly, "There is Salonica!" True, we
knew it existed somewhere, like Syracuse or Antanan-
arivo. But very few people in our world knew anything
more of it than its bare existence. St. Paul, we might
remember, once wrote an epistle to the Thessalonians.
But very few people, again, ever dreamed of connect-
ing, however distantly, " certain lewd fellows of the
baser sort" with the people of the modern city where
Jew meets Greek in a perpetual tug of war. England,
in short, never had any business with Salonica, and
never expected to have any. It was as far removed
from our ken as any place on the map could be. Bel-
gium had been swallowed up ; Paris had been menaced
and saved ; the battle of Loos had been fought and lost ;
Gallipoli had flared up with heroic glory and died down
into a smoulder of forlorn hopes, and some people were
already talking of " war weariness " — and still we had
not heard of Salonica. And then there came a sudden
and unexpected turn in the wheel of war. A new name
appeared in the newspaper headlines — Salonica — and
the convenient maps that accompanied the news of
2
GETTING THERE
our men landing there showed exactly where it lay.
The military critics told us exactly what the new ex-
pedition meant, and all it was going to do. Torres
Vedras was mentioned, and what Wellington did. The
public was much excited and waited eagerly for the
glad news that history had repeated itself. (It came
indeed, but after how many delays and doubts and
grumblings ?) The amateur strategist played joyfully
with the latest idea, and trotted happily up and down
a new country which looked delightfully small and easy
on the map. The first exchange of shots was opened
which developed into the long-drawn battle between
Easterners and Westerners. The immediate doom of
the Turk was announced. People said, "By the way,
is it Saloneeka or SalZonika or Salon^/ker?" And so
the new word — in various disguises — passed into the
language.
And there it will remain. The many thousands of
men of the British Armies who passed through it into
Macedonia, and carried the Old Flag into lands where
it had never been seen before ; or who trod its uneven
cobbles on very occasional leave ; or lay weak with fever
or wounds in the great hospitals that ringed it round,
will see to that. They may have loathed Salonica as
they loathed, in earlier days, the six o'clock hooter on
a Monday morning. But in their minds it stands for
Victory. And they will not let it be forgotten. When
to-morrow's children are listening to stories of Ypres
and Cambrai and Neuve Chapelle a great many others
will be listening to what happened in Salonica and
beyond.
The new name had not yet lost its first flush of popular-
ity at home when the writer received an intimation that
his humble services might be useful to the British Army
8
SALONICA AND AFTER
out there. The Army in and around Salonica, cut off
from all that was good for it, needed a daily newspaper,
and it was suggested that one used to newspapers
should be sent out to produce it. By all the rules of
war (if all the stories we have heard be true) a dentist
or a stockbroker should have been selected. But in this
detail, at least, the Great War was quite rationally
organised, and one familiar with big newspapers was
sent to see about the production of a little one.
It meant saying good-bye to certain cherished hopes
of continuing indefinitely a brief spell of work as cor-
respondent on the Western Front. But the new idea
had it's own particular appeal. A recently published
account of Salonica, written on the spot, gave the im-
pression that it was a very "one horse" place indeed,
with one cafe and one cinema. No doubt the editor
would sit on a biscuit box and learn to give orders to
the office boy in Turkish. The general idea was that
aerial bombardments occurred on most days of the
week. It was, in fact, a plunge into the unknown which
promised to be interesting and moderately exciting.
You may run a war in a wilderness. But a newspaper !
However, after a number of interviews at that for-
bidding place of interminable corridors in Whitehall,
where the idea of a newspaper for an army was treated
a little gingerly, rather as a small dog approaches its
first hedgehog, a start was made. It was an itinerary
that was then rather novel during the war, but has
since become familiar to many thousands. Havre
(raining heavily and very melancholy) ; Paris (begin-
ning to look almost normal again) ; Rome (quite normal,
except for many officers and soldiers walking about in
neat uniforms as yet unstained by war), and so down
to Messina, where a Greek steamer was due to sail
for the Piraeus. And after a very hot, dusty and tiring
4
GETTING THERE
afternoon walking about the ruined city in quest of
various visas and permits, I boarded the s.s.
Nafgratoussa,
We sat down to an early dinner. There were about
twenty of us in the little saloon; a mixed company,
with Greeks predominating, but everybody spoke
French. We included a rough-cut old Greek merchant
skipper who did not seem worth more than five pounds.
But during dinner he told me something of his affairs.
He owned a steamer which, before the war, was worth
£40,000 and which was now worth £120,000. From his
blue serge coat he produced a document showing that
he had just paid £4,666 10s. war risks insurance for one
three months' voyage of his precious barque. He had
been to London with £50,000 to try and buy another
steamer, but had not been successful. *'It is difficult
to buy steamers now," he remarked casually, much as
one might say that the price of boots was high.
There was also an elegantly whiskered Greek
merchant of thirty-five or so, from Marseilles, who had
a very lively eye, and immediately set it, and his con-
versation, at a very pleasant and quiet little French
woman. She easily kept his advances at arms' length,
and later mentioned that she was proceeding to visit her
husband, who was an officer at Salonica. The visit, one
gathered, was sub rosa ; it was essential that the mili-
tary authorities should not hear of it. How M. le
Capitaine X. had arranged it we were not told. "We
have not seen each other for nearly eight months," she
said, impressively. It seemed a dreadfully long time
then. But Salonica altered that point of view. And
there was Mr. S., an elderly Englishman, lately of
Smyrna, engaged in the liquorice trade; one of that
large number of Englishmen whose families have been
attached to the Near East for generations past, and who
5
SALONICA AND AFTER
see very little of England, and of whom the home
Englishman never hears. One learned that liquorice
was used almost entirely for the tobacco trade, and
that only round Smyrna will it grow really properly,
as liquorice should. It is only on trains and steamers
that one learns this sort of thing.
It was a pleasant trip across the Ionian Sea (with
some little concern as to submarines, which we under-
stood occasionally stopped and searched Greek ships),
and so up through the picturesque and storied Gulf of
Corinth, with the rugged mountains of the Peloponnesus
looking across the narrow waters to the high crest of old
Parnassus; past ancient Corinth — a tight squeeze
through the narrow canal in its rock cutting — and so to
the bare headlands which are the gates to the harbour
of Piraeus.
A feeling of the keenest disillusion came over me at
the sight of the parched and brown earth surrounding
it. This such classic ground ! And that utterly com-
monplace huddle of buildings Piraeus ! One had
imagined — well, all sorts of things infinitely more
gracious and pleasing. And as we steamed into the
harbour a wave of torrid air that might have come from
the fires of Hades swept past the ship. Piraeus seemed
a mean, uncomfortable and scorched sort of place,
utterly unworthy to be the gateway to Athens. The
crowd of noisy boatmen who suddenly surrounded the
ship, swarmed on deck like pirates and descended,
shouting and quarrelling, on the luggage, did nothing
to soften the brutal first impression of their native
place.
Fortunately, a young Greek from Athens, who had
been deputed to meet Madame, appeared at the same
moment as the pirates and proved to be most useful
in piloting us to the shore, through the customs, and
6
GETTING THERE
so on the light railway up to Athens, and there to a
hotel. It was an oppressively hot day, and the services
and activities of this excellent young man were beyond
all price. After learning that Madame was en route
for Salonica I had offered to be of any service I could
during the journey. It was thus that I found myself
also sheltering under the wing of Mr. Achilles Leon-
dopoulos, and listening to his views on the latest phase of
the political situation at Athens, and on what the Allies
ought to do in the conflict of wills proceeding between
Constantine and Venizelos. From what I remember of
it he uttered a lot of sound common sense. Firmness
on the part of the Allies was necessary, he said. It was
a long time before we employed it.
In those days the railway was not completed between
Athens and Salonica, and Mr. Leondopoulos "charged
himself" with the mission of finding out when the next
boat was sailing. Two days later we returned to
Piraeus and pushed off into the busy harbour. It was a
beautiful evening, and the idea of a two days' voyage
to Salonica was pleasant to dwell upon.
'* There is the Helda,^^ said Leondopoulos, after a
little while, and pointed to a small steamer. "I am
afraid it is a little crowded."
I looked, and my heart fell at what I saw. Madame
looked — and received the blow extremely well.
The Helda was a very small boat, and we were near
enough to see that it was packed from stem to stern
with human beings. As we drew still nearer we saw
that numerous cattle and a general cargo were crowded
higgledy-piggledy in the waist.
"Ce n^est pas eocactement une transatlantique,^^ mur-
mured Madame.
"There are cabins for ladies," said Leondopoulos,
brightly, and I wondered what they were like. (Madame
SALONICA AND AFTER
told me later.) The noise of the chattering multitude
on the ship came to our ears. We boarded her, and
climbed on the after deck. To gain a footing there was
like forcing oneself into the main street during a village
fair. We were surrounded by a mob of unclean in-
dividuals including, apparently, bandits and cut-throats
of all sorts; Greek soldiers; one pretty French girl,
assiduously waited on by a young Greek with a very
English manner; commercial people from Athens,
Salonica and Kavalla ; a score of long-haired and untidy
Greek priests and, as I afterwards found, many Greek
refugees from Asia Minor. And still boats came, bring-
ing further pilgrims. I sought out the captain on
Madame 's behalf. He promised to do what he could,
and said that if she liked she might sit in a chair on
the bridge whenever she wished. We sat in the saloon
a little later, making the best of dinner. It was hot
and crowded and noisy. Opposite sat the pretty French
girl with her ardent Greek cavalier, who dropped collo-
quial English phrases now and again to show that his
clothes were not the only thing he had acquired in
London. Madame was all attention to the little
romance proceeding before us, and watched the pretty
girl with great attention. ''Elle n^est pas serieuse,^*
Madame announced finally and decisively. But the
young lady was undeniably attractive, and the exquisite
from Athens was making the most of his chances. (I
saw him a year or more later, by the way, in a Salonica
tram, and he had become a private in the Greek Army.)
The Helda was most decidedly badly overloaded.
She also had a considerable list on her. I wondered
what would happen to her if there were any sea on.
But morning found us anchored off Chalcis. The day
was hot but beautiful, the coast of Euboea most pic-
turesque, and the Helda mercifully at rest. Only the
8
GETTING THERE!
crowded unwashed refugees, still stretched out where
they had originally staked their claims, spoiled the
beauty of the morning. A brisk trade in olives and
goat's milk cheese was proceeding from boats alongside.
And a little old man came up the side with a case of
books. He proved to be a colporteur of the British
and Foreign Bible Society. He passed round the decks
selling here and there small religious pamphlets, talking
goodness knows how many languages and dialect's. He
halted before me. "I have books in all tongues," he
said, in English. "I have your Bible." I bought a
small Bible from him, beautifully bound and finished
for drachmae 2.25, or a little less than two shillings,
and he passed on, through the lowing cattle amidships,
to continue his work amidst the people thickly crowded
in the forward part of the ship. It was a scene Borrow
himself might have conjured up.
That day, on the hot crowded decks, seemed as long
as twenty. Fortunately we were in beautifully calm
water, between Euboea and the mainland, and there
was no fear as to the behaviour of the Helda, who strug-
gled gamely along, like a duck with a broken wing.
Evening brought us into the pretty little port of Volo,
nestling under the slopes of Pelion. Day was just turn-
ing into dusk, the lights on shore were beginning to
twinkle. It was a pleasant prospect. Suddenly a
rumour ran round the ship. We were taking on still
more cargo ! There was much excitement, and the
heated conversations on every hand gradually resolved
themselves into a sort of meeting of outraged passengers
in the saloon. Were we all to be drowned just to satisfy
the greed of the captain and his owners ! Two hundred
and fifty cases of cheese were even now being trans-
ferred from boats ! We should sink under the extra
weight ! The meeting became extremely heated. It
9
SALONlCA AND AFTER
was decided to send a deputation of eight to the Capi-
taine du Port to lodge a vehement protest. As the only
Englishman present I was pressed to join.
We crowded into a boat and the mob on board bid
us good luck and success in their various tongues. We
consisted chiefly of Jewish and Greek tobacco mer-
chants from Salonica and Kavalla. The house of the
Captain of the Port was found after a little delay. He
received us in his office, and though very short and
plump, looked competent. There was an excited con-
versation in Greek. The Capitaine du Port finally sug-
gested that we should return immediately to the ship,
as otherwise we might find it gone without us. He
would come aboard immediately in his own boat and
look into the matter.
The scene that followed on board with the captain
of the ship, the Capitaine du Port, and the deputation,
with various other people intervening, cannot be
described. The saloon rang and trembled with noise.
The ship's captain, a slim and resolute looking man of
about thirty, stuck to his guns and was even said to be
prepared to use one. He would do as he liked with his
own ship. True she might list a bit, but that didn't
matter. She had done the same thing many a time
before. The cheese was now on board and he was going
to take it to Salonica. The Greek and Jewish tobacco
merchants waved their arms at him and called him a
potential assassin.
Finally the Capitaine du Port gave a ruling. It was
true that more cargo had been taken on. But on the
other hand a goodly number of passengers had dis-
embarked. Consequently there were 45 tons less weight
on the ship than there had been before. Nobody
believed him, but the Capitaine du Port departed in his
boat. The captain went back to his bridge and left
10
GETTING THERE
the deputation still talking. We put out of Volo, the
Helda feeling just about as springy and lifelike as a
Thames coal lighter.
And even this voyage came to an end. Early after-
noon next day found us off Salonica, looking a fairy
place, with its hundreds of caiques in the harbour, the
steeply sloping and picturesque town going up to the
hills beyond, and the long front appearing to be deli-
cately resting on the water. It is the eternal mirage
and illusion of the East, which from afar promises so
much and on closer acquaintance gives so little.
Salonica smiled her best welcome. I little dreamed how
Jong I and so many others would be there, and how
much we should long to see the last of her.
A plain clothes French police officer came off to meet
Madame. He was not an optimistic or cheerful person.
*'l7ne sale ville,^^ he said, when we were settled in the
boat. '*Four months have I been here already. And
apparently one is going to be here all one's life." Then
the worrying douane. And finally plump into the main
street of Salonica with its noise; its crowded trams;
its polygot and multi-coloured population ; its rattling,
springless carts; its buffalo waggons; its innumerable
loustros, or bootblacks ; its soldiers of half a dozen
nations — and all the other things we got to know so
well, and loathed, tolerated or liked, according to our
temperaments.
A little later I met Madame's husband, M. le Capi-
taine X. He was forty-five or more, rotund and bald,
and a very matter-of-fact personage indeed. But, all
the same, I am sure that for him Madame would have
undertaken that horrible voyage ten times over. Such
is the wayward power of love !
11
CHAPTER II.
When the B.S.F. was Young.
Once upon a time it was difficult to write for the
world in general about Salonica and its Army. One
had to explain; to apologise almost for its existence;
to show what an important link were the British and
Allied forces in Macedonia in the chain that surrounded
our enemies, and how some day their role would be tre-
mendously important. And with all the explanation
one knew that the world at large was only half con-
vinced, or not convinced at all. But the task now is
easy. The work of the Salonica Army is done, and well
done. Its vital share in the great victory is already
clear, and when the historian takes up the story it may
be that it will stand out in even greater relief than it
does to us ; or, at any rate, it is certain that he will
realise from the outset of his labours what most people
during the war only appreciated after years of mis-
conception. But already, without waiting for the his-
torian, the extreme value of the Macedonian campaign
is striking and decisive enough. The Balkan Armies
made the first real breach in the enemy ring, which
resulted in the capitulation of Bulgaria, and brought
Turkey, Austria-Hungary, and finally Germany herself,
tumbling down in ruin.
For the moment we will talk of Salonica of the old
days, when the war threatened to be interminable, and
men settled down to exile with as good a grace as
possible. A distinguished supply officer, who was one
of the first of our army to set foot there, has put down
12
WHEN THE B.S.F. WAS YOUNG
some of his impressions of that time. *'It is difficult,"
he says, "to treat seriously the situation in Salonica in
the beginning of October, 1915. The setting of the
Place de la Liberte, with its cafes spread along each
side of the brilliantly lighted square, where the Greek
officers during the first mobilisation disported them-
selves in brilliant uniforms with their smartly dressed
women-folk, was suggestive of the opening scene of a
Balkan comic opera, and this atmosphere was intensi-
fied by the general topsi-turviness of the situation.
"Imagine a British Army landing in a neutl'al
country, supposedly friendly, but actually engaged in
active and organised opposition, of the passive resist-
ance variety. Imagine the German and Austrian
Consuls in a town containing more than a sprinkling of
their own nationalities, of Turks, Bulgarians, and other
enemies, counting each British soldier and gun as they
passed the dock gates, and concocting in the evening
their daily telegram sent by Greek wireless to Berlin.
Imagine the mail train passing through the British
Base up the British Lines of Communication, to the
British Railhead at Doiran, with its daily freight of
spies and alien enemies, bound for the hostile capital
of Constantinople, and returning thence without let or
hindrance. Imagine all these things, and you have a
fairly accurate picture of early days in Salonica. A
situation which would doubtless have appealed to the
librettist, but which did not argue well for serious
military operations.
"The first forlorn little party of Allies to land in
Salonica consisted of a military mission of seven British
and two French officers. Spirited away from Mudros
harbour in the middle of the night of September 29th,
in a destroyer under sealed orders, they were pushed
unceremoniously ashore between the White Tower and
18
SALONICA AND AFTER
the Marble Steps, and made a somewhat pitiful picture
with their baggage and their batmen, and nowhere
particular to go to. Our instructions, opened during
the passage from Mudros, were somewhat vague. We
were told to prepare for the possible arrival of five
divisions, and that fuller instructions would await us
at the British Consulate. We therefore repaired thither,
leaving two clerks, the batmen and the baggage as the
centre of a curious crowd on the beach. The Consul-
General was on leave, but we were received by the Vice-
Consul, who appeared to be somewhat embarrassed by
our arrival."
The Vice-Consul had only heard of the probable
arrival of the party half an hour before, and was quite
unable to help.
"There was little more to be done for that day but to
dispose of ourselves and our belongings. The French
officers wisely got into mufti and became civilians, but
the British continued to render themselves subject to
summary internment by remaining in uniform in a
neutral country in war time.
"The next few days were spent in reconnaissance of
the harbour, railway and local topography, and in
entering into various agreements and purchases, most
of which were subsequently annulled by the action of
the Greek Government, which stepped in and requisi-
tioned nearly the whole of the articles purchased and
the buildings hired. We managed to borrow a set of
maps from the Standard Oil Company, which proved
to be invaluable, as none were obtainable elsewhere.
Two of us were arrested for making a reconnaissance
of the Croisement Militaire, but fortunately the subal-
tern commanding the guard had been an engineer in
Belgium before the war and had pro-entente sympathies.
He was easily persuaded to let us go again.
14
WHEN THE B.S.F. WAS YOUNG
'*0n October 2nd a wire was received from the British
Minister in Athens saying that our arrival was unexpec-
ted, that it was causing poHtical embarrassment, and
that we ought to return whence we came. This was
rather a blow, but we replied that we were sent out
under War Office instructions, and could not leave with-
out orders from the same source, and asked the Minister
to repeat both cables home. The political situation
certainly was delicate, and to judge by the local papers
our arrival had occasioned considerable consternation.
There were stormy scenes in the Greek Parliament, and
in the end the Greek Government protested against the
landing, but did not take any active military steps to
prevent it.
'*At 9 p.m. on the night of the 2nd we heard through
French sources that our position was being officially
recognised, and this was confirmed at 11 p.m. by the
Greek authorities. This removed the danger of intern-
ment for the time being, but did not have much practi-
cal effect in reducing our difficulties. We found our-
selves blocked at every turn by a solid phalanx of Greek
obstructionists. We found that everything that we
wanted could only be obtained by referring to half a
dozen different officials, each of whom did his best to
delay matters, but the whole business was so insidious
and so cleverly manoeuvred that I do not think any of
us suspected hostile intent until months afterwards."
Such was the beginning of the Allied campaign in
Macedonia, and our difficulties, due to local obstruc-
tion, went on at an increasing rate for many months.
I arrived in Salonica just as the Serbs were beginning
to come in after being reconstituted at Corfu, following
their terrible winter retreat through Albania. King
Constantine and his friends the enemy had been nicely
15
SALONICA AND AFTER
bluffed. He had refused to allow the passage of the
Serbian troops over the railways of Greece, and while
the wrangle was proceeding the British and French
Naval forces had made their preparations, and the
Serbs were brought by sea to Salonica without the loss
of a single man, in spite of the submarines that lurked
round the friendly shores of Const antine's kingdom.
Some day a historian may tabulate and compare the
various instances of Allied and enemy bluff during the
war. I think it will be found that we easily proved his
superior in this respect, as in most others.
The Serbs, then, came to add their share to the
already varied aspect of life in Salonica. The French
and British had already been there for nearly six
months. They had made the unsuccessful advance up
into Bulgaria in order to try and rescue the Serbian
Armies at the last moment. It was a courageous and
hopeless attempt which failed, as we can now see it
was bound to do, but it was by no means labour lost.
The Serbian Army was destined to play a great part in
reclaiming the Balkans. The help of 1915 had been
sent too late, but the Serbians knew that it had been
sent, and that they were by no means entirely friend-
less. And from that Allied expedition up to Bulgaria
really dates the re-birth of the Serbian nation, even
though it seemed to them, at the time, that all was
lost.
Under conditions of the greatest difficulty, with mud,
snow, rain, and the worst of communications to contend
with — not to mention Greek hostility — the Allies re-
treated through the mountainous country beyond Lake
Doiran, punishing the Bulgars severely all the way, and
leaving them sufficiently exhausted not to be able to
follow us on to Salonica. Had they done so the story
might have been very different, to our disadvantage.
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WHEN THE B.S.F. WAS YOUNG
On the other hand it might have turned out badly for
the enemy. Had the Bulgar pushed on to Salonica,
and had we held him there on the strong line of hills,
lakes and marshes that run round the city (the line
known to the British as the "Birdcage"), he would have
greatly lengthened his communications and would have
had to undertake an enormous amount of organisation
and pioneer work, chiefly in the way of road making,
which later fell to the lot of the Allies, and principally
to the British. Also, he would not have been so strongly
entrenched on the formidable line of mountains up-
country which afterwards resisted so many Allied
assaults, and which were finally only carried in the
victorious offensive of September, 1918. It is a pretty
speculation, and one which, perhaps, it is profitless to
pursue further now.
After the Allied retreat on to Salonica, in which a
great part was played by the 10th (Irish) Division,
General Sarrail at once set about the organisation of
the "Birdcage," and British and French dug and wired
feverishly. It was quite expected that the Bulgars
would attack, and in the meantime the correspondents
on the spot were allowed to announce to the world that
the Allies now found themselves in one of the strongest
"entrenched camps" ever made. It was no doubt
largely true. But here again it is possible that the
element of bluff played a part. The Allies were by no
means organised properly as yet for resistance to a
serious attempt, backed possibly by heavy German
support, to capture the great Mgean seaport, on which
the whole of our Balkan campaign rested. And it was a
very good thing indeed, just then, to let the enemy
know some of the difficulties that lay before him, and
even exaggerate them. Allied reinforcements were only
just beginning to arrive, and we needed time to take
breath. 17 c
SALONICA AND AFTER
The Bulgar never came down, and the Allies set them-
selves to the task of reinforcement and organisation.
French and British troops poured in, and our men as
they landed expected immediate fighting. They had
to camp, in most unhospitable weather, on barren and
muddy tracts of ground to the west of the old city,
which later were to become organised camps on a huge
scale, but which at that time were regarded merely
as temporary halting places. Many of them landed in
an appalling blizzard — the worst known in Macedonia
for years past. (But we had plenty later on.) The British
sent some splendid divisions, and it was well that they
did, for only the best of troops could have "stuck" the
long monotony and discouragement of the Balkan cam-
paign, with its unpleasant mixture of difficult fighting,
fever and boredom. Following the 10th Division, the
22nd, 28th, 26th, and 27th Divisions came, in the order
named, and what most of them thought at the time
was to be a quick and short campaign away from the
main theatre of war, developed into the three-years
long vigil, which was not to bring its final success until
the Autumn of 1918. Both Corps headquarters were
installed within a few miles of the city ; the 12th on a
huge mound near Lembet, supposed to be the site of
ancient fortified villages; and the 16th on the pictur-
esque little village of Kiredjkeui, on the hilly road run-
ning up to the mountainous region of Hortiach ; quite a
charming little place with a narrow, winding main
street that always remained a great problem for traffic.
It was, until quite recent times, a retreat for brigands
and comitadjis, who used occasionally to descend from
there into the city, some five or six miles over the hills,
and carry off a plump bourgeois for ransom. A few
years before the war a member of an English family
who lived in Salonica was captured one evening just
18
WHEN THE B.S.F. WAS YOUNG
as he stepped off the tram and walked into his front
garden on the main boulevard of the city. A heavy
ransom was exacted for his return, and this was paid
by the Turkish Government. The whole immediate
region round the city, which was for so long covered
with Allied camps was, until the troops came, a no-
man's-land for the inhabitants of Salonica. The Greeks,
after their arrival in 1912, in the first Balkan War, had
done a considerable amount of good police work, but
Macedonia still remained Macedonia, and there were
many thousands of Saloniciens who had never stirred
outside the limits of their city.
The hard winter of 1915, then, and the opening
months of 1916 was a period of feverish activity on the
part of the Allies. The great transports that came into
the splendid bay discharged troops or munitions daily.
There were docks, camps, offices, transport, telephones,
dumps, hospitals — a thousand and one things to be or-
ganised. Salonica was only a corner of the Great War,
but it immediately became a base for a campaign on a
very large scale — a campaign of much greater propor-
tions, for instance, than the South African War. The
period was full of incident and excitement, although for
the time being there was no fighting. The Allied
cavalry patrols, far out up-country, beyond the line of
the "Birdcage," kept a watchful eye on the Bulgar,
who, as a matter of fact, was digging himself into the
positions which he was to hold for three years. The
Royalist Greek troops quartered round Salonica were,
throughout these first months, a source of much worry
and anxiety to the Allied commanders. Ex-King Con-
stantine was just beginning his really sinister work.
He seems an inconsiderable figure now that he is
merely a deposed monarch inhabiting a Swiss villa,
but he had great potentialities for mischief then, and for
19
SALONICA AND AFTER
long afterwards. There came the day in May, 1916,
when, by his orders, Rupel Pass, the gateway from
Bulgaria into Macedonia, was surrendered to the
enemy. The Greek army corps of Colonel Hadjopoulos
surrendered to the Bulgars at Kavalla, and the enemy
occupied that region and established themselves on the
great mountain ranges (through which the Rupel Pass
is the only gateway) which later marked the whole
length of the British front. General Sarrail had already
turned out the enemy consuls. He now, by a minor
coup d'etat, occupied the Greek post and telegraph
offices. There had been a good deal of leakage of in-
formation on the wires, and it was high time to stop
it. And, as a minor detail, the staff of the British Base
Commandant were turned out of their offices by certain
smaller denizens of Salonica, whose blood-thirstiness
and vigour in attack were to become a byword to us all.
And so the summer of 1916 opened — that terrible
summer which cost the British forces more dearly than
many a minor campaign which has added great tracts
of territory to the Empire. Salonica was now probably
the most crowded city in the universe. The Serbs had
arrived, and a little later came the Italians and the
Russians. The streets, the restaurants, the cafes, and
the cinemas all held far more people than was safe or
comfortable. May opened with very hot weather, and
the speckless blue sky that overhung the noisy, swelter-
ing city was hardly clouded until late autumn. This
was long before the Great Fire, which reduced nearly
a square mile of central Salonica to a mass of ruins.
Every street rang and echoed with the noise of rattling
carts, clanging trams, rumbling lorries or trumpeting
automobiles. For those who lived or worked in the
centre of the town the noise, the crow^ds, and the heat
became a constant and normal misery, like toothache
20
WHEN THE B.S.F. WAS YOUNG
indefinitely prolonged. After a time it produced a kind
of stupor. A month seemed a year. By the time the
summer was half through, one seemed to have been
scorched and jostled and deafened for ever in Salonica,
and the twenty or thirty or forty years one had pre-
viously lived in England or elsewhere seemed to have
shrunk to the dimensions of a pleasant incident.
The Place de la Liberte was the centre of all life in
those days. It had cafes on both sides of it, and save
for the hottest part of the afternoon it was certainly
the most crowded and cosmopolitan spot in the
universe. Looking down on it from the balcony of the
Cercle des Etrangers — an excellent club founded years
ago by a British Consul-General, and in many ways the
pleasantest interior in Salonica — one realised for the
first time the real meaning of such words as ''cosmopoli-
tan," "polyglot," and "crowded." There were officers
and soldiers of the five Allies ; Turks, Albanians, Greeks
(soldiers and otherwise), sailors from half a dozen
navies; Allied "native" soldiers^ — Algerians, Indians,
Annamites, and ugly Senegalese ; Balkan peasants in
their rough frieze dresses, with bright waist-bands ; and
the innumerable all-pervading Spanish Jews and Jew-
esses of Salonica. The buzz of their continuous con-
versation, in half the languages of Europe, rose like
the noise of surf on a beach. And in the cooler hours,
when the populace came forth en masse from their villas
and apartement houses and warrens, one might have
waltzed on their heads.
Here, too, the military bands used to play, and those
afternoons were the happiest in the life of the city.
The British figured very little in this. I remember
seeing the band of the 7th Wiltshires once, but it went
up-country with its battalion, and British music was
heard no more. The French do these joyous and im-
21
SALONICA AND AFTER
pressive things with much greater appetite and success
than we do. They had a band which was largely com-
posed of trumpeters, and their music was of a most
martial and inspiring kind, though a little too vibrant
for all tastes. But to see the trumpeters lower their
instruments with a flourish, and a twist of the gaily
decorated banners that hung from them ; or to hear the
band play the Sambre et Meuse, was very thrilling and
exciting. The crowd never failed to applaud frantic-
ally, with long rolls of hand-clapping. The Italians,
too, brought a band, which was of a quieter nature.
Life is not all trumpets. And when Constantine went
and the star of Venizelos was in the ascendant again,
the Greeks produced a very good band and took their
turn in the concerts of the week.
And over the way at Floca's, now by general consent
the chic cafe of the city, the officers and soldiers of the
Allies, and the better class residents of the city, sat
jammed elbow to elbow at the round tables and drank
tea, coffee or light beer, and ate large quantities of
excellent and expensive cakes. The hospitals had
settled down, and many English sisters and nurses were
often to be seen. It was one of our few consolations that
with the whole world at war almost the best chocolates
of the time could be bought at this cafe. The industrious
brothers who presided over it never (by some miracle)
ran short of sugar during the greatest dearth. The
cakes were the equal of those of a patisserie on the
Boulevard des Capucines. And there everybody met to
talk about the war and the heat and the flies ; cursing
all three impartially and wondering if we were ever to
be delivered from any of them. Dusty and sweating
officers came in from up-country — the nearer up-country
of those days — and told terrific tales of the heat and
discomforts in the camps in the outer marches of the
WHEN THE B.S.F. WAS YOUNG
"Birdcage." They were full of stories of their shopping
experiences in town ; of the poor quality of the mer-
chandise; the impossibility of finding anything they
really wanted ; the tricks of the local Greeks and Jews,
and the exactions of the larger shops, who put on all
the airs of great departmental stores, but provided very
little for a lot of money. Subalterns said, "Damn these
confounded drachmas ; I haven't got the hang of them
yet." All our lives we had lived in a gold country, and
it was hard to realise that these wisps of paper, many
of them extremely dirty, really represented money.
Partly, but not entirely, for this reason, they were
thrown about with a negligent air, and the local shop-
keepers benefited accordingly. A pound Greek note
was spent with less than half the concern with which
a golden sovereign would have been disbursed, and five
drachmae, or a little over four shillings, became the unit
of exchange. It was hard to imagine a purchase costing
less than that. And in this atmosphere of fluttering
notes and the smoke from a thousand cigarettes, w^ith
the long ventilator propellers revolving monotonously
overhead, the Greek waiters wormed their way tirelessly
in and out of the serried ranks of customers, summoned
by impatient and insistent " psss-ss-ts " and answering
with cries of " all right, sair." There were lavish tips
on the tables, and money to be made out of these
hot British officers, who had the curious habit of drink-
ing tea, or sitting round ices like schoolboys in a tuck
shop.
Everything that happened in Macedonia (and a good
many things that didn't happen) was discussed in
Floca's. It was the only common meeting-place, the
Forum of the Allied Armies. Secret agents sat there,
and spies — an excellent arrangement for the hunters
and the hunted to be in easy touch. There were bluff
SALONICA AND AFTER
skippers from trawlers and mine-sweepers, destroyer
commanders back from convoy to Alexandria or else-
where ; navy men of all degrees ; padres who looked like
warriors, and occasional warriors who looked like
padres. One heard stories of submarine encounters, and
other matters of palpitating interest. And yet, looking
back on it all, it is extraordinary how little that really
mattered was said. The British officer, naval or mili-
tary, is an extremely close person about his job. You
may know him extremely well, but he talks of little or
nothing beyond generalities. I often used to wonder
how the poor spies managed to get along, and where
they got their information. It must be dreadfully
annoying to sit in a cafe, buzzing with hundreds of
interesting conversations, all jumbled up like a great
jig-saw puzzle, and to be able to seize nothing from the
mass. But of course messieurs les espions had their own
methods, and Salonica, with its mixture of races, was a
particularly favourable town for their operations. They
were of all classes and grades, and in the earlier days
German agents of all kinds moved freely amongst us.
We had to employ a good deal of native labour, of every
nationality, and at the docks, where the ships came in
with their cargoes of lorries, aeroplanes, guns, and every
kind of material of war, the enemy agents of the smaller
calibres swarmed. Towards the end of 1916, owing to
the increasingly dubious attitude of King Const antine,
we had to send a brigade down the coast to Ekaterini
to guard against a possible attack in the rear. The
troops were not sufficient for the purpose if Constantine
had really launched his Army, but something had to be
done, and there was a good deal in showing that you
are alert to a possible danger. I remember the remarks
of an officer at the docks on this embarkation. '* Those
ruddy old spies were absolutely tumbling over each
34
WHEN THE B.S.F. WAS YOUNG
other," he said. ''It made me laugh to see them at
work ; they hadn't had a tit-bit like this since we came
to Salonica. We didn't worry. We let them get on
with it. They reported that two British divisions were
being sent down the coast, and that suited us all
right." I suppose that so long as a spy may be made to
work for you like this he should be tolerated and even
cherished.*
There was always somebody to see and talk to at
Floca's, providing you could squeeze in. But one soon
found that the struggle to obtain a cup of tea at the
cafe was too exhausting to be made a daily task.
Gradually the tea habit was introduced at the club. It
was a relief to escape from the grilling office or the
crowded streets for an hour, and to sit in its cool, big
room, with the comfortable easy chairs made in Eng-
land. How many subalterns, after a spell of three or
four months in the heat of tents or dug-outs up-country,
have I seen sink into those deep easy chairs with a
luxurious, "By Gad, this is comfort again." Blessed
be the British habit of founding clubs. The most melan-
choly thing about the Great Fire was that it destroyed
this haven, along with so much else.
The memory of dinner on the first night I arrived in
Salonica will never fade. With a friend I went to the
Olympos Restaurant. The big room was full; people
were shouting, "pssst-sst-ing" and clapping hands at
the waiters. It was almost like dining in a menagerie.
And in the midst of the tumult my friend bent over and
shouted in my ear, "You see that dark, handsome man
at the next table, with the strong, hawk-like profile ?
That's the feller who assassinated Mahmoud Shefket
Pasha."
Oh the intense joy of it ! I was a little hazy as to
* See Note at end of Chapter.
SALONICA AND AFTER
how Mahmoud Shefket Pasha had been done to death,
but the point was that I was in Salonica where notorious
and handsome assassins moved about unmolested and
sat at the next table. This was romance and adventure
if ever there was ! I saw the handsome assassin every
day, in the club playing backgammon, or elsewhere. In
a week I was pointing him out proudly to newcomers
who were duly impressed with my intimate knowledge
of the sinister life of the Near East. And then, after
a while, I became used to the assassin, and ceased to
take any notice of him. Shortly afterwards he disap-
peared from circulation and was seen no more. But
whether he really was the assassin of Mahmoud Shefket
Pasha I never knew.
Note. — As the campaign wore on our counter-espionage work, which
was run by the Intelligence Branch of the General Staff, developed
greatly, and became extremely efficient. Owing to the rugged nature
of Macedonia, and to the large tracts of wild country which existed
behind our lines, it was for a long time a comparatively easy matter
for enemy agents to cross from the Bulgar territory to our own, and
back again. They posed as peasants and shepherds, or perhaps really
were peasants or shepherds, and could be Turk, Greek or Bulgar at
will. From Salonica, up through our own country, and into Bulgaria,
these chains of spies ran. Conditions were extremely favourable to
them, but although we may never have stamped the organisation out
absolutely it became a very difficult and dangerous business for the
spy. Occasionally there would be an execution, somewhere behind the
Struma, and a grim procession would start out on a long journey,
the Corps A. P.M. and his mounted policemen in attendance taking
a white-faced Turk (sitting in a mule limber or a Ford car) to his
native village, there to be shot before the head-man and all the rest
of the village who cared to attend — and most of them did. The
chief routes used by these enemy agents were across or near the
Butkova and Tahinos Lakes, in the Struma Valley, and over the
valley which was bounded on our side by the Krusha Balkans and
on the enemy side by the Beles or Belashitza range. As one way of
preventing this traffic we organised several comitadji bands of our
own, composed of picturesque creatures swathed in cartridge belts,
who loved their rifles as a mother loves her baby. They were swash-
buckling individuals who hated shell fire, but were fairly efficient at
the class of work they were intended for. Some of them could not
drop their ingrained habits, even when working under the British
flag, an(^ were quite capable of extracting money from a well-to-do
Turkish farmer under the threat of denouncing him as a spy. Btit
on the whole they did their work fairly well, and earned the rations
and the pay we provided for them.
26
CHAPTER III.
Salonica Nights.
Following on the first advance up to Serbia, and the
subsequent retreat, there came the long lull of prepara-
tion, and it was not until the burning months of June
and July that the Allied Armies moved out from the
line of the "Birdcage" to get in closer touch with the
Bulgars, who were by now well established on their
formidable line of mountains, at no place nearer than
forty-five or fifty miles from the metropolis of Mace-
donia. On one of the last days of May, 1916, I hap-
pened to be a short distance up-country along the
Langaza Valley. One of the battalions which had been
holding the line of hills there, some eight or ten miles
outside of Salonica, had organised an assault-at-arms,
and I was invited to see the fun. There was a marquee
with refreshments, and everything went off splendidly.
But in the middle of the sports the 10th Division began
to file past, on their way to take up the line on the far
Struma. It was a blistering hot day, and the men with
their heavy packs had marched down from the high
plateau just under Mount Hortiach. They marched
slowly past in a cloud of dust, every man looking at the
trim enclosure of the sports ground, with its marquee
and chairs and general look of happiness. The Tenth
had come from Gallipoli, and already had experience of
what a Balkan winter could be. And as they walked
past now, beads of sweat hanging big on the face of
every man and the dust swirling about their feet, they
27
SALONICA AND AFTER
gave us the first real hint of what campaigning in a
Balkan summer was likely to be. It was a strange
contrast; the happy and comparatively cool battalion
at play and the baked and dusty men of the Division
on the march.
In the succeeding weeks and months the British took
up their general line on the right, or east, of the front
along the malarial Struma Valley to the sea ; and with
the French had some brisk hill fighting in the region of
Doiran, where the Allies wrested a series of important
positions from the enemy. The French occupied the
centre, from the Vardar westwards, and the Serbs took
up the line from the left of the French on towards Mon-
astir. And on July 30th the first of the Russians came.
That was a wonderful morning. They marched up the
Place de la LibertS eight abreast, their bayonets on their
long rifles ; magnificent looking men, whose firm tread,
in their heavy boots, seemed to make the earth shake.
Here, one felt, was the might of the Czar, with his in-
exhaustible legions. Here was Great Russia, with her
boundless primitive strength allied to the civilisation of
the West. As the men marched they occasionally broke
out into wonderful and inspiring chants. The Balkan
campaign promised well as they tramped past. These,
no doubt, were but the forerunners of many more.
Roumania was coming in from the north. The enemy
would be pinched like a nut between crackers. . . .
Alas, that the tragedy of the Romanoffs was to dash
these and many greater hopes, and the Balkan Front
was to have its echo of the melancholy collapse of the
Russian giant, so that good soldiers suddenly became
worthless, and the local newspaper in Russian, which
had been started for the troops, gently appealed to the
men to salute their officers again, as they had done
before !
28
SALONICA NIGHTS
Twelve days later the first of the Italians arrived,
Alpini and Bersaglieri amongst them — fine looking
troops who drove the Italian inhabitants mad with
joy. And gradually, in the never-ceasing heat and dust,
the line of the Allies was formed far away beyond the
line of the "Birdcage" — French, British, Serbs,
Italians and Russians taking up their posts over moun-
tain and valley in a continuous trench line across more
than half of the Balkan Peninsula.
And while this was being done, and the men of so
many nations were scratching out their temporary
homes amid the wastes of Macedonia, the capital pur-
sued its life of feverish activity; a city of merchants
and shopkeepers exacting all the profits they could
from the opportunity the great occasion presented, and
a city of soldiers working and organising ceaselessly for
the men up at the front, or snatching — during their
moments of leisure or their occasional visits to the
town — at any pleasure that presented itself; and
Heaven knows it was illusory and unsatisfying enough.
Salonica's cafes, cabarets, cafe chantants, cinemas
and music halls did a roaring trade in those days. There
were plenty of them, but there were never quitte enough
for the thousands of strangers who were within the
gates of the city ; all of them men who, in this unpleas-
ing seaport of the JEgeam, felt acutely that they were
exiles and were only too anxious to try and forget it.
Throughout it was a feverish, make-believe pleasure
which never rang true. One always felt, even in the
noisiest, most uproarious moments — and there was
never any lack of them — that if some voice had sud-
denly called out, "This is all vain and false. There is
not one man who is happy and amused with all this
tawdry nonsense. Let every man who is sick at heart
with it, and has no joy in it, walk out" — one felt that
29
SALONICA AND AFTER
in such case the salle de spectacle would have emptied
immediately, and that the soubrettes with the
mechanical gestures and the harsh or squeaky songs
about nothing in particular, would immediately have
heard the terrible sound of their own voices in the
silence that succeeded to the tumult.
But after all, what would you have men do who are
engaged in the enterprise of war, which is so often bor-
ing when it is not dangerous; and who came down to
town for three days after living in a trench in the
wilderness, or were on earth again after flying through
the white puffs from the enemy's anti-aircraft guns?
There is not much room for philosophy when a respite
is offered from the boredom or peril of war, and so
Salonica's bastard Montmartre flourished. There was
very little that was harmful about it — not more than
usual, at any rate.
The Odeon, the White Tower, the Skating Rink—
these are names that will live long in the memories of
the men who were in Macedonia. The Odeon, which
went with the fire, was one of the chief centres of gaiety
in the old days. It had a certain elegance of design,
rather like a miniature Co vent Garden Opera House.
It was oval in shape, and three tiers of boxes ran round
it, each one filled with vociferous Allied Officers. If it
w^ere possible to award a palm for lung power I think
it would be given to a prominent group of young French
Flying Officers. But everybody was much the same
and, dinner over at the various restaurants, the groups
of Allied Officers filed in, twos and fours and sixes,
arguing at the box office and paying heavily to assist
at a performance which they never by any chance
allowed to be audible. For the recognised thing to do
in these halls of delight and amusement was to make such
a terrible noise and clatter, such a vacarme de tous les
80
SALONICA NIGHTS
diahles, that no word could be heard from the stage.
One by one the ladies of the stage walked on, waved
their arms in a uniform fashion, which suggested they
had all passed through the same drill squad, and sang
about Heaven knows what. Most of the songs came
from the Paris cabaretis, but they might have been in
Choctaw or Senegalese. Meanwhile great fun went on
in the boxes. Bottles were lowered up and down on .^i^ffn
the end of strings; caps were lassooed and recovered;
a perspiring waiter was made prisoner; box called to
box ; the ladies of the establishment, relentlessly plying
their commerce of selling the expensive champagne of
the proprietor, darted about with shrills cries and laugh-
ter, always with an eye to business ; and the members of
the orchestra sawed away, quite accustomed to it all
and quite indifferent as to whether or not their fiddles
were heard. Occasionally from sheer exhaustion there
would come a lull. This was not to be tolerated. Some-
body would beat his cane on the wooden side of a box.
The chorus would be taken up, and a more terrible
sound than the noisy uproar of the human voice would
succeed.
This method of making the most of a performance
was common to all the music halls of Salonica, though
in the open-air entertainment, which was given in the
White Tower grounds in the warm summer evenings,
the audience was much quieter. Such human ebullience
is only possible within four walls and a roof, and is
rebuked by the calm heavens. And here and there one
found a magic touch which always calmed the tempest,
like oil on water. One of these was a young person who
was always allowed to ''do her bit" in comparative
peace. Her act was as stereotyped and mechanical
and unartistic as anything could be imagined. But she
was dainty and pleasing to look upon, and she ''got
81
SALONICA AND AFTER
off" her song with a smile and a rush, and in two
minutes, still with a smile, had disappeared. She had
only one song, and the refrain of it was : —
" J'ai besoin du calmant
Pour mon temperament.
Donnez m'en, donnez m'en, donnez m'en!"
The smile, a flick of skirts, and she was gone. She
attached herself to a local Greek army contractor, who
had made a quick fortune by selling hay or something
of the kind, gave up the triumphs and fatigues of the
stage, and rode about Salonica in a carriage. She had
apparently found a balm for her temperament.
Then there was Polly. It is not her name, but it will
do. She dominated a raging audience as a dompteur
dominates his cage of forest bred lions. She was plump
and rounded, and a Union Jack graced one of her at-
tractive curves. And in her own sphere she did the
Old Flag honour. Polly was a product of the Manches-
ter School of stage dancing, which has sent its devotees,
generally in troupes of four or eight, to every music
hall in the universe. They are all of them thoroughly
capable, and with their skilful twinkling of toes and
legs leave the Continental product far behind. Polly
had seen many stages in Europe and the Near East. I
think the Army found her at Salonica, and I heard
people say they had seen her dancing at Bucharest and
Constantinople quite a long time ago. (They begin
very young.) And Polly would bound on to the stage
when the noise was in full blast. Her appearance
brought, if possible, a louder volume of uproar. Per-
fectly cool and self-possessed, Polly would twinkle about
with her feet, occasionally uttering a peculiar call, diffi-
cult to reproduce in writing, which was taken up by the
audience. She never hurried. She could wait until the
noise had ceased. Then sure enough the calm would
come, and Polly would begin her song and dance.
82
SALONICA NIGHTS
Latterly her song was always "Blighty." When
first I heard it on the gramophone somewhere in Mace-
donia, I thought it the most vulgar and unpleasing song
I had ever heard. But if you are a long time away from
home it grows on one wonderfully. It ends by becom-
ing a tender chanson which twangs the heart strings a
little. It may sound absurd, but
" Tiddley, iddley, itey.
Take me back to Blighty,
Blighty is the place for me,"
have been lines of poetry and music, stirring the ten-
derest sentiments, to many thousands of our men away
at the w^ar. It voiced a desire which was nearest and
dearest to the hearts of all. Polly would end with some
skilful and pleasing dance, a final call of "Ya-oup"
(that is the nearest our spelling can get to it), and a
farewell, nonchalant wave of the hand that put every-
body in their places. We always wanted more of her.
Then there was "Tipperary." It also had great power
to quell the storm. The orchestra had only to strike
up with it and everybody would wait for the chorus to
join in. I have seen British, French, Serbs, Italians,
Russians and Greeks singing it together, and singing it
with a real touch of seriousness; as a rite, something
that stirred the finer feelings. What words they all put
to the refrain one never knows.
And then, finally, there was "Madelon," perhaps
the finest song of the war; certainly to be bracketed
with "Tipperary." At first I used to wonder what it
was that swept all the Frenchmen present into one
channel of song and made them pass from mere noise
to harmony. The artiste who sang it had a sinecure.
The last joyous line of "Madelon, Madelon, Madelon !"
sounded like "March along, march along, march
88 D
SALONICA AND AFTER
along I" And it was only when on a visit tb the
Serbian front that I happened to secure the words. It
was at a Brigade Headquarters, about 4,500 feet up in
the snow. We were on a parallel and neighbouring slope
to Sokol, from whence started the triumphant offensive
of September, 1918. We had lunched royally, and the
piece de resistance had been a noble dish of wild boar,
the gentleman who provided it having been shot some-
where near-by a few days before. And after lunch,
while we drank many sweet coffees in the little hut built
into the mountain side and an occasional Bulgar shell
droned overhead, a young Serbian lieutenant of artil-
lery produced his violin. He played very well, and it
was not long before he had switched int^ "La Made-
Ion," and one could see the pleasure it gave him to play
it, up there in the quiet of the snows. This particular
young man, a student of philosophy at Vienna, had
been in the field practically without a break for six
years. No doubt he had his own thoughts of his native
Belgrade as he played.
Probably one can buy the song of "La Madelon"
everywhere now. But for those who do not happen to
have met it, one may say that it is all about a pretty
serving wench at a cabaret "Aux Tourlouroux," fre-
quented by the poilus. And as each soldier takes his
wine from her he thinks »of his own sweetheart, and says
to Madelon some of the things he is saving up for "the
other." It is made quite clear that although Madelon
is not "severe" and can take a joke from all of them,
she is quite good. As she says : —
" Why content myself with one.
When all the regiment is my own? "
The poilus too arc actuated by the best of motives.
And they all sing in refrain : —
a4
SALONICA NIGHTS
'* Quand Madelon vient nous servir k boire
Sous la tonnelle, on frole sa jupon
Et chacun lui reconte une histoire,
Une histoire k sa facon.
La Madelon pour nous n'est pas s^v^re
Quand on lui prend la taille ou le menton
Elle rit, c'est tout le mal qu'elle sait faire,
Madelon, Madelon, Madelon ! ! ! '*
It is certainly the most lilting refrain of the war.
*'Tipperary" has it!s strong dash of melancholy; very
charming, but melancholy all the same. "La Madelon"
is swinging and joyous, and warms the cockles of your
heart; it sounds like red wine and, when the song is
heard, one can see the soldiers drinking it at the tables
under a shady "tunnel" in the garden of a cabaret in
France. And after a Salonica audience of Frenchmen
had sung that refrain it was always easy to see that
it was as good as a promise of leave to them. Their
eyes shone, there was a new spring in their gestures,
and they turned to drink their thin Salonica beer with
an air which said that life was still good, and that in
spite of the " sacree guerre " they were going to make
the best of it.
It is wonderful, this evocative power of song, whether
for joy or melancholy. I have seen innumerable in-
stances of it in camps up and down Macedonia. The
emotions are always very near the surface, especially
in the case of men who have all been away from home
for a long time, as was the general rule with the Salonica
Army. Most of us rather looked down on the gramo-
phone before the war. But what a wonderful differ-
ence it has made to the life of hundreds of thousands of
exiles; how overwhelmingly, during the war, has it
justified its invention. A bored half-dozen people are
sitting round a mess table talking of malaria or sand-fly
fever, or the absence of cheese from the rations, or some
other unpleasantness; somebody turns on the gramo-
35
SALONICA AND AFTER
phone and the voice of Mr. Robey, tinny but recog-
nisable, uttering some fatuous nonsense, is heard. A
smile goes round. Distance is annihilated, quicker than
by wireless. Everybody is at once in Leicester Square,
or walking up to Piccadilly Circus just before the dinner
hour. London may not be quite all one fancied when
away. But how keen becomes the longing to see it,
and certain people in it !
I remember one night, at a small headquarters' mess
on the picturesque hills overlooking the Struma Valley.
The gramophone had been going for some time. And
then from out of it a sweet woman's voice sang "My
Ain Folk." Everybody there had been away
from home for at least two years, and some
for over three. The pathos and appeal of
the song were almost too much. It hurt. The
night outside was as beautiful as an autumn night
of full moon in the Balkans can be. The peace and
beauty of the hills under the moonlight intensified that
sentiment aroused by the gramophone, the longing for
one's "ain folk" . . . And perhaps it was just as well"
that just then, up in the silver blue vault, the hum of a
German aeroplane was heard. In a few moments it
had arrived over the camp. There was a sudden, dis-
quieting whistle of something coming down and then
a flash and a bang, somewhere close by in the brush
that covered the hills. Again the horrible whistle, and
another flash and bang. And then the Hun above
turned his gun on the camp, which in the moonlight
must have looked singularly pretty. Pap-pap-pap-pap-
pap-pap-pap-pap, etc. In a few moments he had passed
on. He had not stayed long, but he had thoroughly
conjured away an attack of sentiment which, though
very charming in a melancholy way, is really not a
healthy bed-fellow.
36
SALONICA NIGHTS
But to return to our Salonica Nights Entertainments.
One could go on for quite a long time describ-
ing our artistes and their ways, although they changed
but little in three years. There was the plump Italian
lady who always appeared with a horrible little dwarf ;
the Roumanian family, who danced indefatigably, and
whose father was a strong man of swelling proportions
(people used to call laughingly from the audience,
*' Why don't you join the Army ?") ; also Lolotte, who
danced strange lascivious eastern dances, and whose
''turn" was in no way disturbed by the uproar; the
Italian girl with a terrible squint but who sang well,
and later transferred to the Greek Oi>era troupe from
Athens ; the chuckling nigger, who had a kind face, and
could twist himself into all sorts of knots — these and
many more ; performers of third or fourth class merit,
all of them, but who served their turn. They under-
stood perfectly well their role in the life of Salonica,
and probably would have been very much disconcerted
if they had suddenly found themselves before a quiet
and attentive audience.
And after all this talk of noise and boisterousness,
perhaps it will be as well to correct any false impression
which may have been caused. First of all, it was all
so much blowing off steam. Nobody who participated
took it seriously ; it was merely the cloak that hid other
feelings. Then again, with all the noise, the orderliness
was remarkable. With all these audiences of mixed
nationalities, giving vent to their high spirits, there was
hardly even an ugly or unpleasing incident. It would
not have been very surprising had there been. We were
all Allies, it is true, but everywhere there slumbered
small prejudices or criticisms which were inevitable in
such a mixed team as we had in Macedonia. But they
very rarely raised their tousled little heads in the muoic
87
SALONICA AND AFTER
halls, even in the heat of false excitement. And one
may digress for a moment to pay a tribute tlo the or-
derliness and good behaviour in Salonica throughout
our sojourn there. There were five strange
armies in the place, but during the war
crime and disorder in the town were generally
at an absolute minimum, although at night
there were occasionally unpleasant incidents on the
Lembet Road, and early in 1919 there was a disquieting
outbreak of lawlessness at night. But the general con-
duct was marvellously good. I am insular enough to
think that the calm British presence and example had
its share in this ; there is little doubt indeed that the
British constituted the cement which kept the diversi-
fied Balkan Army together. Our very uniformity bred
this general feeling of confidence. One British officer
looked like all other British officers ; one British soldier
looked like all his fellows ; one motor lorry looked like
all the rest. To the foreign eye there is little or no
difference in any of us. A Briton is just a Briton. We
may not realise it ourselves, but we are a very strongly
marked type. I remember once, after living a year in
Paris, finding myself in the Strand and suddenly, for
just a moment and with the eye of a foreigner, seeing
the English type of face. A trifle hard and severe,
perhaps, but one that inspires confidence and respect.
It was possible in that illuminating moment to realise
whence the foreign caricaturist gets his root idea of us,
which, of course, he distorts for his own purposes. And
Salonica at first thought we were merely stiff and un-
flexible, but soon realised that this was only the very
beginning of us and that a good deal lay behind. . . .
How many fulsome compliments did we hear in the later
days ! The reader must try and pardon this small essay
on trumpet blowing. We did mighty little of it during
38
SALONICA NIGHTS
the war. A little now that the great fight is over will
do no harm ; in fact, just a little more of it will be found
later on in the book.
We had entertainments of quite another class. There
was the operetta company from Athens, which played
"The Dollar Princess," and many other light musical
works, in Greek. The performance usually began at
ten, and continued till one in the morning. The leading
lady was an imperious beauty — in her own Greek style
— from Athens, and during a short period she almost
became a toast. Many suitors sought her hand, but
like Madelon she did not believe in attaching herself
to one, and kept them all dangling very cleverly. One
young officer is known to have said, enthusiastically,
"I am one of four who are allowed to send her
presents !" It was a dubious privilege, as he found out.
Again we quite often had excellent concerts in the town,
gala affairs in aid of charities, which were attended by
the various Allied generals. Between them the Allied
Armies could provide sufficient talent to make a pro-
gramme of the highest class. And finally there was the
extraordinary development of entertainments within
the British Army itself. But this is too interesting a
subject to be dismissed here, and we will return to it
later.
39
CHAPTER IV.
A Day in Town.
Everything in this life, or presumably any other, is
relative. The soldier whose lot it was, pleasant or other-
wise, to work in Salonica thought of leave only as a
journey home to England. But the soldier up the line
had a different point of view. Leave for Home was a
thing hardly to be dreamed of. But for the officer
there was always the possibility of leave to Salonica,
although it was not imtil late in the campaign that it
was possible to bring parties of men down, and some
of these saw their first town for two and a half years.
The man who lived in Salonica might sometimes
wonder why on earth anybody should ever want to get
leave to visit it. But the man up-country had no doubts
on the point. On a number of occasions, after an
absence of a week or ten days up-country, I have myself
been pleasantly excited to enter the town again, and
see people once more, and tramcars and shops. And
it was therefore easy to imagine the joy of officers up-
oountry who, after four or six months in the wilderness,
with perhaps a squalid little village as the highest mark
of civilisation, came down to town with three days'
leave.
They made the very most of it, like schoolboys in the
first flush of a holiday. And yet their trip to town
always had its duties and responsibilities. Each officer
so favoured always came down with a long list of com-
missions to be executed for his battalion, so that the
40
A DAY IN TOWN
first two of his three days in town were generally filled
up with tramping up and down the uneven cobbles in
quest of things for others. And it was remarkable how
faithfully and painstakingly this sort of thing was
always done.
For long the weekly journals at home, humorous and
otherwise, were filled with little articles describing the
joys or trials of our officers and men coming home to
England for a few days' leave. The story always began
at Armentieres, or "The Salient," or some equally
famous spot, and finished up at Victoria. Exactly
the same incidents were common to the life of our men
out in Macedonia, with only local differences, but
Bairnsfather has not limned them nor have contribu-
tors to "Punch" let their fancy play on them. France
overshadowed all, and for the average reader at home
"Leave" meant a trip across the Channel in the Bou-
logne boat. They could not imagine that large numbers
of their countrymen sat on barren hills just short of
Doiran, or in the malarial plain of the Struma, and
looked with much longing towards a higgledy-piggledy
city of the Mgean, some fifty miles away. Victoria did
not enter their thoughts. It was out of the question —
reserved only for those lucky people who campaigned
in France. Salonica represented all that there was to
hand of civilisation and, if you like, joie de vivre. It
was a pK>or enough substitute, but the very most was
made of it on the rare occasions when those of the front-
line could visit it.
Out in Macedonia the first throb of excitement came,
say, on Tortue Hill, just below the sinister Grand
Couronne, or at some outpost of ours on the plain facing
the Rupel Pass. In the one case it meant a long ride
to the railway, and then a tedious all-night journey in
the train; in the other, a ride to the 70th Kilometre
II
SALONICA AND AFTER
stone on the Seres Road, thence to be carried all the
way down to Salonica in a lorry. But in either case the
result was the same. A tired and dusty officer presen-
ted himself at the pretentious Hotel Splendide and
demanded of the best they had in bath, breakfast and
bedroom. And what matter if the prices were those of
the world's best hotels ? No niggard regard for the
value of money ever spoiled a three days' leave in
Salonica.
Bath and breakfast made a new man of our subal-
tern. Forgotten for three whole days were the dusty
tracks, the stony nullahs, the mule transport, the bully
beef, the chlorinated water, the eternal Bulgarian
mountains, rumbling to the sound of the guns, and the
unpleasant night patrols "up there." The world was
his and all that was in it. There were pavements to
walk upon — very uneven and dirty, but still pavements.
There were women to be seen in the streets, even ladies,
and all sorts of people who did not wear khaki. There
were shops to buy things in, and girls who served them,
who spoke quaint, quickly-learned English. And at the
White Tower Restaurant there was an orchestra, and
a big pleasure garden sort of place, with a few trees
in it ; and when on the summer nights everybody dined
outside, with lights on the tables, and the well-to-do
bourgeoisie of Salonica sat there with their ample and
liquid-eyed ladies — well, it was not at all a bad sort of
place, and helped to tide over many a man who ached
for the long-lost and perhaps magnified delights of
Home.
Behold our visitor, then, his puttees beautifully
wrapped, or his field boots magnificently polished,
starting out tio conquer Salonica as though it were Picca-
dilly. At ten o'clock on a summer morning Salonica
may seem a beautiful place. The clear air sparkles,
42
A DAY IN TOWN
but it is not yet hot. Over the way (that is, fifty miles
down the Gulf) the high crest of Olympus, with a patch
of snow still on it, shines like a jewel. There is a hint
of breeze in the air, and the picturesque caiques (scores
and scores of them lined up against the sea wall) are
bobbing about at their moorings, where the local mer-
chants are in attendance, discharging their cargoes of
rude pottery or charcoal or big golden melons, fresh
from the Islands. The streets are alive with excitement,
and there is much to look at and be interested in, after
four months in a nullah. A staff car flashes past, with
two impressive and impassive figures in it. "Lucky
beggars," our subaltern thinks — but for the moment
would not change places with them. A dozen dirty little
loustros call out for the honour of polishing his polished
boots : "Hey, Johnny, Mister, shine." (From General
to Private we were all Johnnies to the Macedonian.)
But he passes on, knowing well that his boots are
beyond reproach now, even though in an hour's time
the dust will have removed all their sparkle. Past him
on the cobbled sea-front a constant stream of traffic is
moving, chiefly military. There are tram-cars, too,
with the local populace hanging from them in clusters.
In one motor car that passes there are two nurses who
have been given a lift on their way into town from one
of the hospitals outside, and whose eyes are sparkling
with pleasure and excitement as the car rushes them
along. One of them is decidedly pretty, and our subal-
tern's breast heaves a Httle with all sorts of unexpressed
emotions. Life down at the Base ! By Jove, how lucky
some people are ! But that afternoon he himself ha^
an appointment for tea out at one of the hospitals,
there to meet someone who, as he sits in his nullah
at the front, seems infinitely fair and pleasing, and per-
haps vies in his thoughts with the image of another
43
SALONICA AND AFTER
one, who is so far and so long away in England that
it seems impossible that he will ever see her again. He
may not be quite in love twice over, but it seems very
much like it as he looks forward to the afternoon tea.
But before that there is business to be done. His
steps lead him up the Place de la Liberte and so through
the covered bazaar into the Rue Egnatia — a stretch of
the famous Via Egnatia which St. Paul trod and which
now, as our hero walks along its uneven cobbles, is one
of the most noisy, crowded and varied streets of the
universe. The stlrip of colour on his shoulder-strap
shows the Division he belongs to, and each British
soldier who meets him in the street salutes very smartly
— a little nuance of extra tribute to the man from up
the Line. Twice our hero has to skip quickly to avoid
being crushed by a tram-car. Lorries come crashing
along, and the bent native porters, with immense loads
of all kinds on their backs, narrowly escape the fate of
the foolish tortoises, which on summer days wander
lazily across the Macedonian roads and are flattened
out by our lorries. At Piccadilly Circus (that is what
we at once called it and what many of the natives now
call it) the congestion is tremendous. Here one broad
highway comes down from the Struma front, the famous
Seres Road, and another comes down from the Monastir
region. East meets West here, if you like. Piccadilly
Circus is on the edge of the city, and every variety of
Balkan peasant and gipsy is marketing there, and buy-
ing all sorts of funny things to eat from trays that stand
just off the main stream of traffic. British military
policemen, majestic and amazingly competent, sort
out the tangle, always just one second ahead of chaos.
There is nobody like the British M.P.
A few yards along the Monastir Road and the visitor
arrives at the E.F. Canteen. He has a long list of all
44
Salonica in the days of
the Allies. A Section of
the crowd listening to the
French Band in the Place
de la Liberte.
Some of the
Comitadjis
who work-
ed for the
British in
the Struma
Valley.
Photo: Lieut. Lafontaine.
A DAY IN TOWN
sorts of dainties and necessaries required by the Mess,
and patiently takes his place in a queue until he can be
served. Ideal Milk, cigarettes, some towels, a case of
gin (very important^? vermouth (equally important),
a case of whisky (absolutely vital), some gramophone
records with something from 'Thu Chin Chow" if possi-
ble, chocolate, soap, some safety razor blades — and two
dozen other things. But perhaps it is a bad time for
stocks. The U boats have been unusually busy in the
Mediterranean. The man behind the counter takes the
list and looks at it with a gloomy eye. *'None of that,
sir . . . None of this." "What, no Gold Flake cigar-
ettes ?" gasps the visitor, in something like consterna-
tion ! What is life up at the front without the tang of
the admirable "stinker !" Verily, the humble Virginia
cigarette, so despised at one time of all well-dressed
young men, has also done its bit during the war.
But so far as means will allow, the list is made up
and paid for, and our hero arranges that he will call for
the packages in a "gharry" on the day of his departure.
Then with a heavy load off his mind, but wondering a
little what the Mess President will say about the things
he didn't get, he turns his thoughts to lunch. There
are still many other commissions to be done, but those
can wait.
A passing car opportunely gives him a lift, and in
five minutes he is near the White Tower. The correct
thing to do is to lunch at the French Club, and he will
have to be quick to obtain a ticket.*
* The French Club was an admirable institution. Its only fault
■was that it was not big enough for all who would po there. It was
opened in 1917 and was immediately assaulted by Allied officers. It
served better food, and at much cheaper prices, than anywhere else
in town. Many people wondered why we did not have a British
Club, and such an institution was often talked about Ion a: before our
Allies opentfd theirs. But the idea was never taken up. The Salonica
45
SALONICA AND AFTER
Luckily he is successful in securing one of the last
tickets for the second service. He has half an hour in
hand. The club is situated pleasantly on the edge of
the sea, and has a charming little garden, executed in
a scheme of bamboo decorations and sun shelters, by
almond-eyed French Annamites. Here cocktails may
be bought, and the blue sea laps pleasantly near the
tables. He soon finds half a dozen acquaintances, all
of them like himself possessed of the Freedom of
Salonica for two or three days. . . The single cocktail
becomes several. It is in the happiest frame of mind
that he answers the bell and sits down to lunch. The
big room shakes with conversation. Everybody is
there ; French officers with many medals, Greeks be-
longing to the Army of National Defence of Mr. Venize-
los, with their ribbons all of sky blue colour. . . .
Afternoon finds him at Uchantar, seven miles out
from the town on the slopes of the first barrier of hills.
Here, at one of the General Hospitals, lives the young
Army had been given a foolishly bad name, and perhaps it was that
the authorities thought that a campaign which was described as a
" picnic " by idiots at home could not afford to give itself the luxury
of a club and restaurant at the Base where officers could eat well
without being swindled. Our own Rest House was not opened until
long afterwards, when the immense destruction of hotels and res-
taurants caused by the fire made it imperative that we should have
a centre of our own. But as far as the provision of meals is con-
cerned, it was on nothing like such a big scale as the French
establishment. Sometimes the French felt that they were being
crowded out of their own club. But, after all, who can run a res-
taurant like the French? And again, did not British ships, through-
out the whole campaign, carry every ton of beef that went to feed
all the Allied armies in Macedonia? Week in, week out, the meat
ships came in, carrying over from Port Said the Australian beef
which kept five Allied armies going. Two hundred tons a day they
delivered at the height of the campaign, in spite of the submarines.
Ourselves we thought about it little enough, and probably our various
Allies never thought about it at all. It was just one small, odd scrap
of Britain's immense contribution to the war. Where (1o(>s beef come
from? Oh, ask the White and Red Ensigns. . . . And so, in this
little matter of the restaurant we may fairly say that matters were
even.
46
A DAY IN TOWN
lady to whom he has more or less given his heart. She
is delighted to see her hero — and it is a detail that she
has another up the Line. There are other sisters and
officers present, and there is a merry party on a slope
of the hillside overlooking a mangifioent panorama —
the harbour far away, looking like a pool with tiny
ships on it ; the picturesque crest of Hortiach away to
the east. Between them and the sea is a vast expanse
of hillock and plain, dotted all over with hundreds of
camps. Through it runs the Seres Road, the greatest
artery of the British communications, bearing its daily
burden of lorries and ambulances. And far away to the
south across the Gulf, towers great Olympus, looking
infinitely more majestic from this height than from
the quays of Salonica. There is a blush of pink on its
snowy crest. It is the herald of one of those glorious
sunsets which make Macedonia magical; which come
so often with the peace and calm of evening, and seem
to compensate for the heat and dust of the day ; which
made it possible, indeed, for many thousands of our
people to "carry on" and draw from evening the neces-
sary strength and resolution for the morrow. The little
group sits quietly, looking on at the wonderful scene.
Individual thoughts are busy and they are all turned
inwards. They are conjuring up visions of Surbiton,
of Piccadilly Circus (the real one), of a summer's even-
ing up the Thames — or of a hundred other pleasant
spots at home you may like to name.
" Curious that we should all be sitting here looking
at a sunset behind old Olympus," remarks somebody.
It is a thought that often recurs — that English people
should be gathered together like this in a land which a
few years before some of them had never even heard of.
The party breaks up. The sisters have their work to
do. There are a thousand and more patients to look
47
SALONICA AND AFTER
after — malaria, dysentery, sand-fly fever, P.U.O., and
other things — and they cannot wait on sunsets.
So our hero drops down to town again in a motor oar
which he has "scrounged" for the afternoon from an
accommodating M.T. Officer. The peace of the last
half-hour up there on the hillside has brushed him
lightly with melancholy. He feels that Ufe should be
composed of gentle things. And it is not pleasant to
leave Her. . . But town approaches, and his spirits
rise a little with it. After all, she is coming to have tea
at Floca's with him on his last day. The bustle of
Piccadilly Circus dispels the last whiffs of his melan-
choly. He returns the salutes of the M.P.'s feeling how
good it is to be sitting alone in a nice big car.
At the French Club he meets a party of friends for
cocktails. Afterwards they all dine in a box at the
White Tower Restaurant. It is a merry party.
There is champagne. Blow the expense ! In
the middle of it, the orchestra strikes up with
its usual nightly medley of Scotch airs and dances.
Instantly the restaurant is filled with those horri-
ble noises which all Anglo-Saxons feel called upon
to make when an orchestra plays a Scotch reel.
The rest of the diners, the foreigners, take it for granted
now. They have come to realise that when a certain
kind of anusic is played the British make these noises.
No doubt it is some sort of semi-religious rite. The
climax comes (nightly) with the playing of Auld Lang
Syne. The Anglo-Saxons stand up and clasp hands and
bob up and down, like howling Dervishes, and even
sing. At the end of it there are cheers and calls for
more. And then our hero and his party, after paying
the heavy bill, file out with much tramping of heavy
boots on the wooden flooring. They are bound for a
48
A DAY IN TOWN
box at the Odeon, where there will be even more noise.
And so, after a night of it, to bed at the Splendide,
His thoughts are a Uttle confused as he lies down in
his twenty-franc bed. One day gone ! But there are
two more to come. Lots more shopping to be done.
That must be polished off to-morrow. Wonder who
will be in charge of the patrol to-night, looking for the
jolly old Bulgar. Probably Jenkins. Serve him damn
well right. Never liked Jenkins very much. What a
day ! Jolly fine sole that was at the French Club.
Wonder what She is doing now ? Perhaps lying in bed
thinking of him. Hope so. But whom is he really in
love with? England's so far away. Over two years
since he saw the Other. So much can happen in that
time. Curse the war. Wonder when it will end. . .
And so to sleep.
49
CHAPTER V.
''The B.N."
One day the S.S.O. of the 28th Division came in a hurry
into the office of The Balkan News and explained that he
wanted some posters made of the largest size jx)ssible
bearing the legend, under the name of the paper, "Re-
ported Death of Queen Anne." It was for a joke up-
country, he explained. We managed to oblige him,
and on the night the posters were done one was dis-
played from a box in the White Tower Theatre. The
howl that went up from all the British Officers amazed
everybody else present. WTiat was this British joke ?
The well-known and deservedly popular A.S.C. Major
who held the poster out of the box enjoyed the fun as
much as anybody. And in the middle of it he turned
to a friend near him and said, "Who is Queen Anne,
anyhow?"
I mention this harmless little incident merely to show
in what relation The Balkan News stood to the Army
for which it was produced. It was everybody's friend,
and may truly be said to have been the centre of all
interest and amusement in the B.S.F. Given the con-
ditions under which it was produced, it might easily
have been a joke. Instead it made jokes. Once, indeed,
Punch, which, as everybody knows, thrives on other
journals' errors, made a palpable hit against it. There
was an advertisement on the back page which read,
"Finest Scotch Whisky." Late one night the hand-set
50
"THE B.N.'^
type of this advertisement became dislodged on the
machine, and the printer, who was a Spanish-Salonica-
Jew, put the bits back as best he knew how. Conse-
quently the next morning the line read, ''Finest Whitch
Scosky.'^ Punch remarked : "Evidently the printer
had been sampling." But the trouble was, not that
he had been sampling Scotch, but that he had never
sampled English. And we should like Punch to try the
task of producing without error a newspaper composed
by Jews, Greeks, an Italian and other oddments, none
of whom know English except in occasional dangerous
patches, and which appears not once a week, but seven
times !
Salonica was extremely well supplied with news-
papers. It had them in all tongues — like the little man
who was selling religious books on the steamer at Chal-
cis. There were Greek, of course, French, Turkish,
Italian, and Judaeo-Espagnol (the written language of
the Spanish Jews who were expelled from Spain in the
reign of Isabella). Altogether there were more than
twenty. But there was only one in English, and it was
The Balkan News, generally known as the E.N. or
"The Balkan," or the "Bawkanoos" — after the cry of
the vendors who sold it all over Macedonia.
It may be taken quite for granted that when many
years hence the last veterans of the Great War are tell-
ing stories to their grandchildren, quite a number will
talk about The Balkan News. A newspaper, thank
Heaven, is not merely merchandise, although many
merchants own newspapers. A newspaper is a living
thing, an idea with a soul in it, and the soul of the
B,N, was a bright little flame that shone in many a
dark place in the Balkans. There are people who used
to ride twenty miles a day to get it. It was their only
link with the world beyond. By means of the wireless
51
SALONICA AND AFTER
messages printed in it, which a wise Government sent
broadcast, they could read what Mr. Lloyd George had
said the evening but one before. This means a great
deal to a man who is living far away from anywhere,
because Mr. Lloyd George was nearly always cheery,
and one of his speeches was as good as a new disc on
the gramophone. The B.N. readers could rejoice in
victories, when we had them, and smile sardonically at
the explanations of the military experts when we didn't.
If ever there is a '*next wair" I would suggest that
the military authorities give as much attention to sup-
plying the troops with news and newspaper reading as
with rations. One is almost as necessary as the other —
at any rate, on a front far removed from home. The
London newspapers which arrived on the Salonica
Front were hardly ever less than three weeks old. After
such a lapse of time they were always flat and stale,
as the troops had always learned sufficient of the current
news iQ the interval to rob the big newspaper of nearly
all its interest. The B.N. happily filled this gap, and
although it did not take very long to read through, it
always supplied new subjects for conversation. And
that is what keeps the mind uplifted and the spirits
bright in men who are so long away from their homes
. . . "See what the Balkan had in this morning about
the new Tanks ?"
Any attention and care that an Army took to
brighten and improve a newspaper produced specially
for its troops would be repaid many times over. The
proper provision of a newspaper, with the necessary
machines, paper, staff, etc., and plant to reproduce
photographic illustrations and humorous drawings,
would run to about a tenth of the outlay necessary to
organise the average supply dump, and the enormous
value of such an installation to an Army, if properly
52
"THE B.N."
conducted, cannot be expressed in figures. The only
drawback to such a newspaper, run on strictly military
lines, is that it might tend to become a little too stiff
in its attitude. The Press is one of the few things which
does not run easily into the military mould. The comic
muse, for instance, does not flourish imder such con-
ditions. A Major in charge of such a department might
be the best of fellows, but there would be moments
when his position in the military hierarchy would clash
with his duties or his fancies as an editor. The Balkan
News was free of this difl&culty. As in the case of the
official war correspondents, there was no rank attached
to the office of editor. But the paper suffered from the
disadvantage of having to rely entirely on local techni-
cal resources, and these, for the most part, were of a
very primitive kind, so that the staff could never give
full effect to their ideas and inspirations, and many
good things that might have been done — all of which
would have helped greatly in heartening and cheering
the troops — had to be left undone. The difficulties of
obtaining proper supplies and materials from England
during the war were practically prohibitive.
But whatever the professional point of view may
have been as to the technical shortcomings of the B.N.,
there was little or no feeling of this kind among its
many readers. "There are only two things one used
to look for up the line. One was letters from home and
the other was The Balkan Neios." I have heard this
said very many times, and it was the general opinion.
And people liked it because it was small, and not in
spite of it. There was no desire for a three-decker
London newspaper in the trenches, with gardening
notes, ladies' page and all complete. The B.N. was a
symbol of the life they were leading. If you live in a
gully, you don't expect to see the Daily Telegraph oome
58
SALONICA AND AFTER
up every morning with the ration mules, any more than
you expect to put on a white shirt for dinner.
Started in November, 1915, the B.N, was the first
daily newspaper to oome into being purely for the needs
of an army, and the cry of "Bawkanoos," which was
first heard in the camps immediately outside the city,
spread, as the troops advanced, to the furthest confines
of Macedonia. The distribution was done by means of
train, lorry and ration cart, but also, and chiefly, by
the untiring efforts of some sixty vendors. All sorts
of problems were always arising, of a kind quite un-
known to the London circulation manager. The
weather was a great factor. In the earlier stages of the
campaign the roads were in a terrible condition, and a
rainstorm or a blizzard often cut off not only the news-
paper bundles, but rations and supplies as well. The
newsvendors were of all ages from eighteen to sixty,
and were chiefly Jews from Salonica, or Greeks — some
of them refugees from Thrace or Asia Minor. They were
almost invariably a hard-working, conscientious lot,
and although some little suspicion was attached to them
at first on the score of possible espionage, nothing was
ever brought against them, and in time they came to
be accepted as a natural feature in the camps. They
dressed in the strangest garments, and their faces, as
they appeared in photograph on the police passes with
which they were provided, suggested nothing so much
as a rogues' gallery. But their cry of "Bawkanoos"
was as welcome as the birds in spring. I have heard it
in the early morning in scores of camps, and it was
often melodious in the highest degree. It always re-
minded me of the warning cry of "Achtung" that one
hears on the Swiss toboggan tracks. (It is a German
word, but it sounds very beautiful in a Swiss valley in
winter.)
54
"THE B.N."
Looking back on nearly three years of work on The
Balkan News, the predominating feeling is one of thank-
fulness that seven-day journalism is unknown in
England. I remember that after the first solid year's
work on The Balkan News, in all of which period tliere
had been only one half-holiday — ^this because the Jew-
ish vendors would not work on the feast of Yom Kippur
—one felt dazed and benumbed. Help at first was diffi-
cult to get, and it was necessary to carry on day after
day without cessation. In the summer of 1916, the
office was like a red-hot stove. And, day after day,
even four smallish pages need a lot of filling, when in
addition to an Editor there is only a staff of one, whose
energies are almost entirely taken up by the careful
proof-reading that is necessary when the compositors
are Jews and Greeks who do not understand English.
And there was one dreadful period of over a fortnight,
when even the staff of one was in hospital with a touch
of dysentery. One worked in a dream — articles, proofs,
leaders, poems, callers, telephone, proofs, machine
breakdown, heat, flies, telephone, tea-time, proofs^ —
and so on, till dinner. Every morning, during that
year, one rose with enormous and bounding vitality;
with great ideas of the grea/t things one would do ; of
the articles and books that were calling to be written.
By lunch time, these visions had evaporated, and
during the heat it was as much as one could do to
totter down Venizelos Street, protected by a sun hel-
met, and lunch frugally on an iced Perrier (when there
was one to be found) and tomato salad. By tea-time,
the fifty-and-one things of the sweltering afternoon had
reduced one to a condition of fierce irritability; a crisis
which was only conjured away each day by tea at the
club. And by the time dinner came, at 8.30, one
looked forward to the morrow with horror. It was a
55
SALONICA AND AFTER
treadmill. One had the tragic feeling which must have
always been in the heart of the oft-quoted Sisyphus.
The stone pushed painfully to the top of the hill during
the long day always came rolling back at lightning
speed with every evening. For no sooner were the
damp proofs finally passed than one had to begin to
prepare another paper for the morrow. All this would
not have mattered for six days in the week. But it was
the seventh day that nearly broke the Editor's back.
But running the B.N. even in these first days of
stress had many compensations. One was very much in
touch with the great heart of the Army, and one knew
exactly what tune it was beating to. Enough has been
said about the British soldier's gift of humour in the
War to make it unnecessary to labour the point here.
One need only say that the men of the B.S.F. were in
no way behind the men of tlie other British Armies.
They did all their grumbling through the medium of
humour, and we discovered some first-class humorists
in the Salonica Army. They had, of course, all the
usual humorous grumbles to make, common to all
Armies, but they had also their specialities, and of
these, quinine was certainly the foremost. That the
humorous subject of quinine had behind it the very
sombre background of malaria — with the strength of an
army sucked away as if by an evil spell — only, of
course, made the joke all the better.
The exactions of the local shopkeepers suppHed the
motive for many articles ; also the quaint ways and
language of the many Greek labourers attached to the
Army. These were known generally as Idey Brosses;
from the Turkish word " haide " (*' get along in front
there ") and the Greek word " emhroSf'^ which means
much the same thing. The drivers of the local carts all
shout this in the streets : " Haide-e-e-bros-s-s "; both
56
"THE B.N."
words being stretched out to great length. It is the
Macedonian equivalent for the French attention and
the "mind your backs" of the London railway porter.
Every Greek, or any other native of Macedonia, there-
fore became an Idey Bross. But somebody one day
called a native "Johnny." The native retorted in
kind, and thus, although later all natives became
" Johnny Greeks," all the British became Johnnies too.
And it is really a little disconcerting for a Staff Colonel
to be addressed as " Hey Johnny."
Later in the campaign, " Balkan Tap " was an in-
exhaustible fund of humour. It means that you suffer
from a sort of mental obfuscation, due to long resi-
dence in the Balkans without leave — and many of the
medical officers think there may be something in it.
" Balkan Tap " is supposed to make you do all sorts
of strange things, and the mere mention of the phrase
in the Army theatres always brought its laugh. There
are various explanations of the origin of the term, but
they need not be traced to their sources here. " Balkan
Tap" is an excellent illustration of the virtue of making
the best out of the worst. The weariness and staleness
that came of long campaigning in the Balkans became
crystallised in a phrase ; and the mere quotation of the
phrase chased away the weariness for the moment and
raised a smile.
After the many excellent humorous writers who
figured so prominently in The Balkan News the poets
were the most remarkable feature. There were thou-
sands of men in the army who apparently had a desire
to write verse, and they came from all classes. A few
were really good, many quite passable and the majority
terrible. For weeks and months on end, one would
receive a dozen poems a day in the office — and poems
are very troublesome things to deal with. So often one
57
SALONICA AND AFTER
is tempted to publish a poem, not because it is good,
but because something in it pleases or touches or
amuses; or perhaps out of sheer compassion because
the author sends with it a letter in which he describes
how tremendously grateful and happy he will be if only
he can see his poem appear in '* your well-esteemed
and bright little paper." It is disastrous to give way
to any such weakness as this, because the delighted
author immediately follows up his first poem with a
second, which is much worse, and continues to bom-
bard you at regular intervals. And though a poet who
is never published may only waste away with seci'et
grief, a poet who has been published once and then is
scorned, becomes an angry and bitter man with a
grievance.
The fame of the B.N. has gone all over the world.
Innumerable thousands of copies of it have been posted
to every corner of the British Empire. We were
*' noticed " in many newspapers in many climes, and
always with every kindness, though sometimes with
patronage. Did we not indeed once administer a rebuke
to " The Kidderminster Shuttle " for this very reason ?
One will never forget those days in the summer of
1916. The dominant note in life w^as exasperation — due
to the heat and some of the native people one had to
deal with. Up to lunch things would always go calmly,
but in the afternoon there would be complications. The
compositors would get tangled up, or the age-long
quarrel which existed between them and their head man
would break out afresh. One would have to go into the
composing room and still the tumult, and in the midst
of accusation and counter-accusation the desire to take
them and bang their heads together became overwhelm-
ing. Most of the natives of Salonica have this irritating
effect on one. The usual run of employees are utterly
58
*'THE B.N."
unmannerly, and a favourite trick is to rush in and
break in on a conversation with loud shouts about some
unimportant matter or other. The local magnate, with
whom you are talking, breaks off to answer and a hot
discussion follows in Judaeo-Espagnol. You stand there
and run your fingers through your hair, and want to
assassinate somebody. Salonica quite altered my views
as to the ethics of murder. If one had known exactly
what to do with the corpse, I would often have slain
a son of Salonica.
During the long afternoon — ^perhaps the telegrams
were late, or the precious typewriter had broken down,
due to somebody once tampering with it — there would
be an innumerable string of callers who put their little
troubles at our door : Where to buy a piano, a gun, or
silk stockings for a concert part "girl" ; could you please
cash a cheque ? — is it t^e that you have a car, and if so
is it likely to be going this afternoon to the — th General
Hospital, nine kilometres away ? — could you get us a
programme printed by to-morrow night ? — hello Old
Thing, I'm down again for three days, come out and
have a nice cool drink — may I use your telephone ? — I
want you please to find a nice Greek Officer with whom
I can exchange conversational lessons — can you come
up and see our show to-morrow night, I tell you^it's
great, and our beauty chorus makes all the rest look
cheap ? — can you tell me where I shall find any litera-
ture which tells all about the many tumuli found round
Salonica, and if not, do you know anything about
them ? — do you know the authentic history of the
White Tower? — I have a little poem here, if you
wouldn't mind reading it through I'll wait ! — And so
on. Also friends would come in and say, " I know
you're busy, but ..." and stop for twenty minutes.
So on, till tea-time, and then till eight o'clock, when
59
SALONICA AND AFTER
the paper, with its cumbersome hand-set type would
be ''put to bed." Then back again after dinner, to
prepare for the morrow. A seven-day newspaper, even
a little one, is like a sick baby. Yoii can never leave it.
Quite a number of anecdotes, true and otherwise,
cluster round the B.N, One of the true ones is that of
the Bulgar who left a note for one of our outposts on
the Struma, saying that as he possessed the words for
'' Boris the Bulgar " published in the B.N. he would
be awfully glad if he could have the music. " Boris
the Bulgar " was a parody on the famous '' Gilbert the
Filbert," and the refrain of it was: —
*' Good gracious, how spacious
And deep are the cuts
Of Boris the Bulgar,
The Knifer of Knuts."
I believe it was decided that' the request should not
be granted. Another Bulgar used to leave a penny
every night somewhere near Big Tree Well, in the
region of ButkovaLake, and quite often he got his B.N,
in exchange. No doubt every such copy did more than
its fair share of propaganda.
And this sketch of the work of The Balkan News
would not be complete if we did not mention a great
personality who was closely identified with it. I refer
to that grandiose individual known to all in the Balkans
as His Macedonian Highness, The Comitadji.
H.M.H. The Comitadji was a sort of blend of Falstaff,
Cyrano de- Bergerac, Ally Sloper and Mr. Horatio
Bottomley, adapted to Balkan conditions. It will
easily be seen that here are all the makings of a Great
Man. He was a being of imposing presence; he drank
deep — ^too deep ; he was, according to his own accounts,
a great Bulgar Slayer; he had, naturally, a plurality
of wives ; and was a master of rounded, rolling periods.
60
The Limonadji, or
street lemonade seller.
Photo: Sergt Milne
A scene in JeanTchimiskI
Street, December, 191 6.
^^^^^^^^^^H||^^^^^^H|P^^
l^^^^l^ IKkAN N -V ■ W
fcv " -^T^r^ ^'^^
(^mmMK^m^ttm
Photo : Capt. T. E. Grant
"THE B.N.''
In royal, or semi-royal, state, he moved up and down
the British area of Macedonia in his powerful Ford
motor-car, which was universally known as the J.R.L.,
or Junior Road Louse. Another Great Man of long
ago, Don Quixote, was brought into being to tjilt at the
false romanticism which existed in Cervantes' time.
H.M.H. was perhaps partly called into being by the
great outpouring of decorations and orders which was
one of the symptoms of the Great War. As so many
others were being given, H.M.H. The Comitadji insti-
tuted his own orders. The best known of these was the
Order of the Boiled Owl, and after a time it became a
very prized decoration indeed. I remember a Lieut. -
Colonel who had been so decorated, who, on reading
that a mere major had been similarly honoured, sug-
gested quite seriously that the O.B.O. (this was long
before the days of the O.B.E.) should not be given to
anybody below his own rank. There were other decora-
tions, but the Order of the Boiled Owl was by far the
most prized.
Armed with a plentiful supply of decorations, then,
H.M.H. The Comitadji toured his dominions in the
famous J.R.L. Soon no function was complete without
him — or at any rate, without an account of his visit to
it. For long he remained a semi-mystery to many men
in the Salonica Army. Anything might happen in the
Balkans, and quite a number of people were really per-
suaded that a magnificent individual, with gorgeous
costume and royal mien, and with an amazing capacity
for liquor, was somewhere in attendance on The Balkan
News and flitted up and down the country. Some of
them even saw him ! But after a time it was generally
accepted that the Editor, if anybody, was the Comi-
tadji, and as the first thought evoked by the presence
of the Comitadji was a plentiful supply of strong drink,
61
SALONICA AND AFTER
the Editor had some dreadful times in vainly trying to
do the reputation of the Great Man justice. The royal
device of H.M.H. was Ivresse Oblige, and it was a motto
that wanted a lot of living up to.
Perhaps to those who read this who have not lived
in Macedonia the humour attaching to the august per-
son of H.M.H. may not " spring to the eye " as our
Allies say. But I, who know him well, have every
evidence of the worthy role played by H.M.H. in
lightening the weariness of the Macedonian campaign.
He could not, naturally, actively ameliorate the con-
ditions of Hfe, but he and the Boiled Owl and the
J.R.L. and the Court Physician and the rest did their
bit in making people smile and be happier. His name
became a household (or a camp-fire) word ; it is one
that will be vividly remembered, hke The Balkan News
and the White Tower, years after the War is over.
And it is something to make G.H.Q. laugh. The Comi-
tadji did that in the description of how he fared in the
vast British Headquarters when he went looking for
leave. The humour that exists in the subject of in-
toxication can certainly be overdone. But H.M.H. had
other points than this, and he showed that there is
many a worse motto in life than Ivresse Oblige, And
he flourished under the highest patronage, for the
C.-in-C. himself approved of his journey ings among the
troops — even if he did not specifically commend his
libations.
62
CHAPTER VI.
Friends Up Country.
I REMEMBER Well my first real escape from the noise and
crowds of Salonica to the space and freedom of "up
the line." It was not very far up, less than half-way
to the front, but after a year's continuous work on The
Balkan News, it was like an escape from bondage. I
went up at the invitation of a friend who was an amus-
ing and an amazing person. In Salonica he had been
the head of a large business, but had thrown this up
to take a commission in charge of " Greek Labour," as
we called it, although there were all sorts of nation-
alities in the labourers we had to work for us, chiefly
on road-making. Of Armenian extraction, bom in
Manchester, and with a long experience of the United
States and Constantinople, my friend combined the
qualities of East and West in a remarkable degree. To
hear him talking — ^Mon Dieu, how he talked ! — of what
we should and should not do in the war, and accom-
panying his everyday English with gestures in the
Oriental style (like murder, they always will " out ")
was an education. He thought with all the quickness
and intensity of one of the cleverest of the Eastern
races, and expressed himself like you or me. It made
one realise how little the average Englishman thinks,
or rather, how little he gives expression to whatever
he may be thinking. The East may or may not be
always "a-calling," but it is certainly always a-talking,
and here one heard it articulate in our own language.
68
SALONICA AND AFTER
And if England does not talk overmuch, it is always
willing to sit and listen, and Jimmy, as we will call
him, always had an audience.
Jimmy was in charge of a large camp of Greek
labourers — men, women and children — but was living
close by with an R.E. unit, whose duty it was to keep
in repair a long stretch of the Seres Road. At this
time, M. Venizelos was living in Salonica, as head of
the National Defence movement, and Jimmy had in-
vited him to come up the following day, and see what
sort of a time the natives had when working under the
British flag. Consequently, it being in the nature of a
gala week-end, there was a special dinner on the Satur-
day night, and lavish entertainment on the morrow.
It was a first-class dinner, and the evening that followed
was lively and amusing to an extraordinary degree.
Jimmy proved to have many entertaining " stunts "
up his sleeve. He had a marvellously lifelike exhibi-
tion of a lady doing up her hair, in the style of Arthur
Roberts, and could do absurd dances. Everybody tried
to do something and the mess furniture suffered.
Next afternoon M. Venizelos came up from Salonica,
accompanied by the other two members of the Trium-
virate of that time — General Danglis and Admiral Con-
douriotis. A large square '' ring " had been roped off
in Jimmy's Greek camp, and round this were gathered
some thousands of our soldiers, a large number of staff
officers from a neighbouring H.Q., and most of the
population of the labour camp. There were first of all
dances from the little girls of the camp (who were all
earning high wages working on the roads), and M.
Venizelos looked on with a benevolent smile. Then
we had wrestling matches, presumably in the Greco-
Roman style, and some very sturdy champions tried
to pull each other to pieces. One realised that under
64
FRIENDS UP COUNTRY
his baggy clothing, the Balkan peasant may conceal
a splendid physique. A real champion from Crete,
from whom much was expected, was beaten by a local
man, to the great satisfaction of the residents in the
labour camp. All this was followed by a display of
boxing, and M. Venizelos, after taking tea and cakes
in a crowded tent, returned to Salonica amid loud cries
of " Zito." It was quite a successful afternoon, and
M. Venizelos was able to see for himself what had long
become an accepted fact all over Macedonia — that
everywhere they came under British control, the natives
had such a peaceful, happy and prosperous time as they
had never known before in all their lives. One story
of an old Turk in the Struma Valley crystallises all this,
and throws a searchlight on the normal conditions of
the Balkans. " You know," he said, to a well-known
British Colonel, " this is the first war of its kind we
have ever known. 'None of your men have touched our
wotnen.'^^
The time of this trip up-country was early spring,
and the region in which I lived for a week had a beauty
of its own, during this brief period before the heat
came. It was a place of treeless, rolling hills and
valleys, with a rocky crag here and there, scoured by
deep watercourses which for the greater part of the
year were dry. Here and there we had quarries which
we were ceaselessly blasting for road metal. The O.C.
lent me his horse, and with Jimmy I explored the sur-
roundings. One day we went a long ride to Langaza and
back, and I thought, as we thudded at full gallop across
the plain, of crowded and smelly Salonica, with its
eternal noise and discomfort. Here, in the pure air ot
Spring, with not a soul in sight, it was like being un-
caged and given wings. Langaza is a big Turkish vil-
laefe, about two miles from the large lake of the same
65 F
SALONICA AND AFTER
name, and set in a broad and fertile valley. The Army
had just started a big potato farm there. We found the
officer in charge of it away, but had an excellent tea
in his rooms, an old Turkish house, all the same. How
little we English change wherever we are. It was a
splendid burst of freedom, but for me the whole glorious
day would have been spoiled if we had not found a
teapot at Langaza. And all over Macedonia at that
moment, up io the confines of Serbia, Bulgaria and
Albania, innumerable parties of Britons were sitting
down to tea, in tents, huts or dug-outs, and asking each
other to pass the marmalade.
Following on that first pleasant experience " up the
line," I was able to make many trips, and go much
further afield, thanks to the help of a sturdy Ford,
which at one time and another bumped me over most of
the tracks of Macedonia. And wherever one went one
found a little settlement of Britons, generally very com-
fortably installed and always glad to offer hospitality
and talk with somebody they did not see every day.
After the first year of our presence in Macedonia the
country became very well organized, and our men were
able to settle down to some extent and make the most
of the circumstances in which they were living. Those
who could, abandoned tents and built huts to live in.
Little camps grew and developed, so that the halting
place of 1916 became a pleasant residence in 1917. The
many motor transport companies dotted up and down
the country took endless pains to make their camps
look as much like home as possible. Divisional and
Brigade Headquarters became pleasant little villages,
cunningly hidden away in all sort of gullies, or built into
a hillside. And in the line itself the battahon head-
quarters developed and did all sorts of wonderful
tilings with sandbags and a few odd bits of corrugated
66
FRIENDS UP COUNTRY
iron. So that gradually order and some measure of
comfort were imposed on the wilderness, and if one
had transport and the privilege of roaming up and down
the country one could always be sure of a good dinner,
a bed of sorts, and pleasant company in whatever spot
of Macedonia evening might happen to find one.
On one of my earlier trips up the line I realised to
the full what the officer who came down to Salonica
on three days leave had to undergo for his amusement.
A friend in a Scots regiment called in the office and
insisted on my returning the compliment, so to speak,
and spending three days " up there " with him. It
was June, and broiling hot. The small Ford van, piled
high with packages bought for the mess, took us six
miles along the bumpy Monastir Road to Dudular
Station. There we took the train and, after a very un-
comfortable afternoon, during which everybody took
off all the clothes they decently could, we arrived
late at Karasouli. The R.T.O. was extremely glad to
see us. A Boche aeroplane had not long before passed
over and he feared it had " got " the train. Limbers
were waiting for the mess supplies, and horses for us.
For two hours we rode, and on the way admired a sun-
set behind the mountains on the Serbian frontier — a
gorgeous sight. There were glimpses of the Vardar here
and there, winding in its broad valley, and with the
last glow of sunset a sickle moon hung over the moun-
tains, now one long sweep of sepia outlined against
the faint blue of the sky. After the afternoon in the
blistering train, this peace and beauty of the cool even-
ing was perfect — a balm to the soul. At dusk, with
some difficulty we found the camp of the Brigade Trans-
port Officer, hidden away as usual in as lumpy ground
as possible.
Here we dined excellently on frozen rabbit (a new
67
SALONICA AND AFTER
issue, over which we made the usual jokes). The
Brigade Transport Officer was a hospitable soul, sent
the port round freely after dinner, and pressed us to
stop the night. It was now dark as a bag outside, and
I should have liked nothing better. The B.T.O. pro-
tested that it was a shame to take a stranger out on a
three-hours ride after dinner. McNab (as I will call
my friend) insisted cheerfully that we should do the
journey in two hours. He carried the day, or the night,
and we started off in pitch darkness. We lost our way
completely — ^McNab was new to this part of the line —
and after many adventures finally rode into an ugly
little valley full of dug-outs and shell holes at three
o'clock in the morning, this being McNab 's home in the
support line of his battalion. We had been nearly six
hours on the way. I was dog-tired and wanted only
to lie down, but McNab insisted on producing a drink
from somewhere in his dug-out and began to talk of
the glorious time he had had in Salonique !
It was a very pleasant and interesting three days I
spent with McNab and his friends. There was much
to do and see. We were on the very left of the British
line, just near the Vardar. Over the river the French
took the line, and carried it on across the mountains
to where, near the high Moglena Range, they linked up
with the Serbians. It was a quiet time on the front.
Nothing particular was happening, although there was
a fair amount of artillery activity. Our trenches here,
as things went in the Balkans, were strongly held ; the
junction on the Vardar was a point which needed every
care in defence. But here, as everywhere else, we had
practically no reserves. The Balkan campaign, in fact,
was fought with no reserves worth mentioning, not
even an Army reserve. We had none. The front-line
troops were always the front-line troops, and some of
FRIENDS UP COUNTRY
them were in the trenches without cessation for a year
or more on end. Here again we come to the question
of bluff, which has already cropped up elsewhere. The
enemy could never possibly have realised how thin was
our line, and how little we had behind it. We carried
out raids and attacked with the very men who, in case
of a big enemy offensive, would have been all that we
could oppose to the Bulgars. On occasion, we even
created a '* stage army " to deceive the enemy. I know
of one case in which the same section of transport,
which was in view, but not in range of the enemy, was
sent marching round and round a hill to give the
appearance that it was a long continuous line. Remem-
ber that we had 90 miles of line to hold, and for a
long period had only four Divisions, at times much
weakened by battle losses and sickness, to do it. If
the Bulgar had tried an attack on the grand scale, with
German support, as was often anticipated, he would
no doubt have received a rough handling — everybody
was determined on that — but he must have got through.
Here, in the sandbagged front line, one thought of
the multitude of shopkeepers and commerqants down in
Salonica, who plied their trades and made their money
out of the Allied Armies solely by virtue of this very
sandbagged line, which they never saw or visualised,
and probably never even thought of. No Man's Land
here was some 1,000 yards wide and the Bulgar trenches
ran along the crest of a high hill which as usual domin-
ated us. In the tumbled space of ground between our
patrols went out night after night to Red Indian work ;
a game at which they became extremely efficient,
whether on this front or in the narrow No Man's Land
near Lake Doiran or in the wide extent of the Struma
Valley. I have met officers who have done patrol work
in France who said they preferred it between trench and
69
SALONICA AND AFTER
trench to this eerie wandering about in the darkness
in a wild ground full of watercourses, ravines, ruined
villages, and a hundred other feat*ures which might
conceal an ambush. The Bulgar was extremely good
at this game, but as time went on our own men became
easily his masters in every form of night work.
McNab's Company Mess was a cheery place, full of
young Scotsmen chiefly from Glasgow. The roof was
of tin and the sides of sandbags. The Bulgar was rather
fond of plumping 5.9's into this particular part, and
it was trying, during dinner, pretending that one liked,
or at any rate was quite indifferent to, the loud bangs
that were sounding from the fairly near neighbour-
hood. The mess possessed a gramophone with four
discs, all in French, which had been dug up somewhere
in Salonica. One was "The Song of the Cameldriver,"
a most melodious individual who performed every even-
ing. Another was *' Le Dernier Carre de Waterloo,
avec Chants, Trompettes, Tambours, Salves d'Artil-
lerie. ..." and goodness knows what else. It was
inspiring and popular. There were also two songs from
the Paris cabarets, imperfectly understood, but thor-
oughly welcome. We had them all twice over, and the
sound of the ladies' voices took one's thoughts back
to the Boulevard des Italiens and nights spent at '' La
Pie Qui Chante," and elsewhere. We lunched one day
at the battalion headquarters' mess in the line, a mas-r
sive creation of sandbags, and there on the walls La Vie
Parisienne was doing its dainty worst. Everywhere
one discovered " La Fte." One wonders what its war-
time circulation became as a result of the British
Army's fondness for a touch of colour in life. It
became, in time, an acute relief to enter a dug-out or
a hut or a mess of any kind and discover that the pic-
tures on the walls were not the impossible, lingeried
70
FRIENDS UP COUNTRY
creations of the artists of ''La Fie." And yet one has
seen many places so decorated, with the undulating
forms of the skittish young things carefully cut out
with scissors, with the most pleasing effect.
One day, McNab and I rode to the Brigade head-
quarters for lunch. It was tucked away in a very
narrow ravine, with every hut most carefully camoufle
with brushwood, but all the same the Bulgar heavies
had found it, and a day or two before two mess waiters
near the cookhouse had simply disappeared, following
the explosion of a 5.9. Here we found that one of the
officers on the staff — a keen naturalist, like many other
officers in the B.S.F. — had a magnificent pair of eagle
owls in a big cage. They stood nearly three feet high
and had eyes like blazing yellow gooseberries. Their
captor caressed their downy chests, and they looked
down at his hand with grave owlish interest as he did
so. Nobody else would have tried it. Their long talons
and beaks commanded respect. The Brigade Staff
had another curiosity of which they were proud ; their
so-called " Ice-chamber," a deep gallery cut into the
rocky side of the ravine. Here after lunch, in the semi-
darkness, we sat and smoked, cool as cucumbers, while
outside the heat of early afternoon shimmered and
danced. There was something boyish about the officers
in their " shorts," with shirts open at the neck and
sleeves rolled up. These and the eagle owls and the
ice-chamber, and the general feeling of campaigning
being jolly, as it can seem after a good lunch and when
you are sitting in a cool place on a hot day, gave one
a pleasing Peter Pan sort of impression.
Undoubtedly, in years, to come, many of those who
passed through the long exile in Macedonia will, in
looking back, forget the hardships and the weariness
and think only of the happier side. Some there were
71
SALONICA AND AFTER
who had little or no happy side. The infantry who
held the constantly battered trenches on, say Tortue or
the Horseshoe — two of the many very " warm " spots
near Doiran — or who patrolled day after day and
month after month in the malarial Struma; or the
transport drivers, whether of lorries or mules, who made
their difficult way along muddy and hilly roads and
tracks — these saw little of the pleasant side of hfe.
But here and there were people whose lives, during cer-
tain periods of their service at any rate, were cast in
pleasant places. One of the most favoured spots in
all Macedonia was Stavros, the little port we made at
the extreme right of the British line, on the Gulf of
Orfano. It was a sweet little place of noble hills,
covered with dense olive green scrub and trees, running
down to the edge of a blue sea. Early in 1916 a camp
began to spring up on the sea shore, which gradually
developed so that huts became quite passable bun-
galows, and these and the tents that lined the beach
reposed under the grateful shade of trees — very rare
things in Macedonia. The climate was generally beau-
tiful, although very hot and relaxing in summer, but
there were winter and spring and autumn days there
that were a dream of delight. There were only two
drawbacks to life there; the mosquitos and the occa-
sional bombs dropped by the enemy aeroplanes, but
these, after all, were common to all the front. But for
the bombs, and the frequent rumble of the guns a little
further up the coast near the mouth of the Struma,
where ancient Amphipolis lies buried, it was really
possible to forget the war. Later on we opened a rest
camp there, which was the most appreciated spot of all
by tired officers and men sent down for a spell from the
line. I spent a delightful four or five days at Stavros
on one occasion. One's hosts were as pleasant and as
72
FRIENDS UP COUNTRY
hospitable as could be; my tent, pitched on white
sand, was five yards from the edge of the tideless sea ;
it was very hot, but there was constant shade and a
deck chair, and that most exquisite of all pleasures —
sitting lazily while other people worked. One day, an
energetic M.O. made me walk up a steep ravine to see
the work of canalisation that had been carried out,
so that the stream in the ravine could rush down strong
and unimpeded, leaving no quiet pools in which the
anopheles mosquito could breed — one little detail of the
immense labour which was necessary to make Mace-
donia a place in which it was possible for civilised
people to exist. It was very hot in the narrow ravine.
The energetic M.O., full of enthusiasm about his anti-
malarial work, bounded up from rock to rock like a
mountain goat. Half-way up I regretted leaving that
deck chair, thought longingly of the shady trees and
the gently lapping wavelets on the shore. . . . But
later at dinner, sitting on a little verandah, with the
magnificent colours of evening shining on the bay, and
over the great mountains beyond, that fronted our
positions, one forgot the trials of an energetic afternoon
in the peace and comfort of this al fresco repast. It
was as good as an evening at Monaco, with the added
charm of a picnic thrown in. Only the absence of Eve
marred all such gatherings. How many thousands of
men have thought, in such circumstances, that with
" the wife " or " the girl " sitting there, even war
would have its compensations. After dinner we went
to the theatre, if you please; a large place, half-tent,
half -shed, newly erected, where an excellent troupe
from the 27th Division was performing; and coming
out afterwards a bright moon could be seen shining up
above through the trees and the nightingales — hun-
dreds of them apparently — were so busy with their
73
SALONICA AND AFTER
singing that it was almost a clamour. There is no doubt
about it that Stavros was made for honeymoon couples,
but alas ! there were no honeymoons to be had in the
B.S.F. Stavros had yet one more charm in that it
was, so to speak, amphibious. The Navy was well
represented there, chiefly by very jovial commandei*s
of monitors, who in the mornings '' shoved off " in their
wallowmg craft to throw some " heavy stuff " into the
Bulgar trenches away beyond Orfano, and in the even-
ing came ashore to tell all about it at the little club.
Also somebody made a tennis court near the beach;
and there was some of the best woodcock shooting in
the world there — ^^if you could get cartridges. Likewise
there were the beauties of the Rendina Gorge — a real
beauty spot But we must say no more of
Stavros, lest we give a false impression of campaigning
in the Balkans. It was, without a doubt, the Jewel
of Macedonia, shining all the brighter for its contrast
with so much of the rest of the barren country, and
lucky were the people who were able to put in a good
stretch of work there.
Later in the campaign travelling up and down was
much facilitated by the various little hotels that were
organised here and there, which I believe originated
with the 28th Division. The chief purpose of these
was to provide an intermediate stage for officers to sleep
in a trip from the Line down to Salonica. They started
in a very humble way and gradually developed
until we reached the summit of accommodation in the
hotel at Yanesh, the Savoy of Macedonia. Yanesh is
also spelt Janes, and going along the roads one encoun-
tered here and there hanging signboards, quite in the
old English manner, bearing the legend : '* Go to Janes
Hotel," which was a little puzzling to some people,
who wondered who Jane could be. It was a well-built
74
".?lfr^^#*; 'i'-'^:^-^^f^^^9§
.■'mS/
Photo: Topical.
Macedonian shepherd on the sum-
mit of Mount Kotos (4,000 feet)
overlooking Salonica harbour.
FRIENDS UP COUNTRY
structure, with a dming-room, reading-room and a
number of two-bed cubicles. And greater than all these
was a bathroom containing two beautiful, shiny- white
full-sized baths. How many officers, down from the
dusty trenches in the Doiran hills ten or twelve miles
away, have splashed about luxuriously in these, revel-
ling in the caressing lap of plenteous hot water ? During
the " pantomime season " Janes Hotel was the scene
of many a pleasant gathering in which both sexes were
^represented at dinner, for as a great treat the sisteors
and nurses at the Base hospitals were sometimes taken
a trip up the line to see the Divisional shows. And
what a difference it made to everybody, officers and
men, to hear the sound of a woman's voice ! For
months and years on end the only representatives of
the softer sex seen by our men up country were bent
and wizened hags, w^ith dusky faces, carrying a load
of brushwood on their backs. Female grace is not a
strong point in Macedonia, and the law of the male
who makes his spouse do all the hard work is still ob-
served. One may see My Lord trotting proudly along
on a diminutive donkey, and My Lady trailing behind
carrying her load.
There are so many friends up-country of whom one
would like to speak, but they were all the same — that
is, they were all most hospitable. There were friends
at Dimitric, the battered little mud village on the
Struma Plain, with its truncated minaret, so long the
headquarters of the 27th Division. Dimitric was a
very museum of birds — starlings, rooks, crows, storks,
owls, screech owls, hawks, ravens, and many other
kinds. And the marshes of the river, a few miles away,
were a paradise for the sportsman — geese, and duck of
all kinds. But that applied to many places.
At the headquarters of the various Divisions, in M.T.
75
SALONICA AND AFTER
camps in Serbia and elsewhere, or with the Battalions,
one always found a welcome. I remember at a Field
Ambulance, tucked away like so many other camps
in a ravine, one of the M.O.s at dinner produced a most
amazing insect which he had found. It was just about
the size of a small chick, and was the sort of thing one
would expect to encounter only in a nightmare. The
M.O., who was something of a naturalist, told us all
about it, but I forget the details, and even its name.
It crawled over the table during dinner, causing much
interest and some alarm. Coffee over, the M.O. packed
the horror back into its box and retired to his tent,
from which presently came the melancholy and wistful
sounds of a flute. (Besides being an M.O., a naturalist
and a musician, he was a first-class photographer, a
student of Arabic and an authority on postage stamps.
One meets people like that.) He played extremely
well, but I think there is nothing to equal the melan-
choly of a flute. Try it on a still evening in a pictur-
esque ravine, with the rumble of the guns coming
faintly from further up the line and a gentle enthusiast
playing the Barcarolle from " The Tales of Hoffmann."
He was still playing when we went to bed, his earnest
silhouette cast by the candle-light on to the side of his
tent, and as I lay in my own I felt like crying with
the American in the famous story, '' Take that man
away. He's breaking my heart ! "
There was one often to be met with up-country whom
one cannot presume to include amongst one's friends,
but who meant a great deal to the life of everyone in
the B.S.F. Often on a lonely hill road, one would
see far ahead a car coming with something that fluttered
on it. The driver would see it too, and unconsciously
stiffen a little. Somebody on the roadside would see it,
and stand very erect and ready. And then the car
76
FRIENDS UP COUNTRY
would flash past, with the Union Jack fluttering out.
The British Commander-in-Chief was on his way up or
down the Hne ; the man who held in his hand the
thunders of Jove, or the kindly power to reward good
work well done. It always gave a little thrill to meet
the C.-in-C. on the road. One felt suddenly very much
in touch with home, and England's power and all that
she stands for. Here, in a sense, was the King himself ;
or as near to him as we in Macedonia could hope to get.
Many stories are told of encounters with the C.-in-C.
on the road. Some are true, no doubt, and some only
ben trovato. There are stories of swift and terrible
lightnings ; other stories very kindly and gentle in de-
meanour, eminently satisfactory to all concerned.
Stories of quite humble people being picked up and
given a lift, and being able to air their views before
Authority in a fashion they would never have dreamed
of; and other stories of people who fled wildly from
the possibility of encounter. No doubt all Armies have
similar stories about their Commanders-in-Chief. These
things grow, and expand, and take varying colours
from the messes they pass through. And as everybody
knows, every good General has a nickname by which
his troops know him. Unhappy the General who is only
known by his proper rank and titles. Napoleon had
his nickname. And our General was called " Uncle
George." Perhaps he knew it, and perhaps he didn't,
but there can be no doubt that it was a very good name
to have.
77
CHAPTER VII.
'' The Coveted City."
Salonica is a city with a very long street and a very
long history. But the history is far the longer of the
two, and runs back right through all the ages of civil-
ization as we know them, to a time when the world
was very young indeed.
Everybody who comes first into the city by sea says
instinctively, " How beautiful ! " An hour afterwards,
if they have landed, they exclaim, " Heavens ! What
a place ! " Its site is a splendid one, although the hills
which rise sharply behind the town are absolutely de-
void of verdure. It has a touch of Venice as the ship
comes in, and seems to be floating on the water of the
harbour. The sight of it, as sometimes seen through
the early morning sunshine shining on a touch of
pea,rly grey mist, can be enchantment itself. It is im-
possible, even when you know it well, to realise that
this filmy cloak of splendour conceals so much thnt is
squalid and mean. The wooden Turkish houses are
washed in all sorts of colours, blue, pink and green, and
at many points trees peep out of the houses. The old
Turkish town runs up the steep slope of a hill, and
from the sea the ancient walls can be seen circling
all round it like a girdle, with the grim old Citadel
frowning down from the top. Away to the right rise
the high wooded crests of Hortiach and Kotos. The
long suburb stretches round the bay and gives the place
the air of a mighty city. The picture is comjplete, or
"THE COVETED CITY"
would be, if there were a few trees on the barren hills.
So powerful is the illusion of the East that even since
the fire Salonica looks beautiful from the sea.
*' La Ville Convoitee," its only modern historian has
called it, and somebody or other, indeed, has been
coveting it throughout the ages. Somebody was always
trying to steal it; some savage tribe or other was
always battering at its walls, and often breaking
through. Being in a geographical sittiation of great
importance carries its disadvantages. In the First
Balkan War (1912) three Balkan States coveted it, and
it fell to Greece. This fact was largely the cause of the
Second War, ia the following year. Austria, looking
down the broad corridor of the Vardar, had long
cherished designs on it, and her desire to possess it was
one of the motives behind the launching of the Great
War.
*' The City of Salonica," we read, " was founded by
King Cassander, 315 years before the Christian era.
The King, being very ambitious, and wishing to possess
himself of a portion of the rich Empire conquered by
Alexander the Great, ravaged Macedonia. Many towns
and villages were only heaps of ruins." So we see that
well over two thousand years ago, Macedonia was
going through the same process which has continued
practically without interruption up to the present day.
In Macedonia, history does not merely repeat itself. It
is a sort of cinematograph which flicks the same pic-
tures on to the screen time after time. The costumes
and weapons of the ravagers vary as the centuries roll
on, but their methods remain much the same.
King Cassander thoughtfully built the new town to
give shelter to the many people he had rendered home-
less elsewhere, and named it after his wife (the Great
Alexander's sister) Thessalonica. Salonica has always
79
SALONICA AND AFTER
been worried by the problems of refugees, and we have
three very recent instances; in 1914, owing to the
deportation of Greek populations from Thrace ; in 1917,
following the Great Fire, when over seventy thousand
people were homeless; and in December, 1918, and
January, 1919, when thousands of wretched Greek
families were brought down from Bulgaria — whither
they had been deported by the Bulgars during the War
— and huddled into the roofed shells of buildings re-
maining from the fire. Happy is the country that does
not know the meaning of the word '' refugee."
Fire, pestilence, famine, earthquake, revolution, war
and massacre — *' The Coveted City " has known time
and time again all the major ills that can aiSlict poor
humanity. It is really a wonderful story. Following
its palmy Greek days, the Romans came and, as was
their wont, remained a few hundreds of years. The
city had everything a city could desire; purple pro-
consuls, triumphal arches, temples and the rest, not to
mention the famous massacre ordered by the Emperor
Theodosius in which anything from seven to fifteen
thousand people were wiped out in three hours at the
Hippodrome. It was a propitious beginning for tribu-
lation on the grand scale. Salonica was attacked in-
numerable times by sea and by land ; often resisted
successfully but was as often taken and sacked. Name-
less Asiatic tribes of the very long ago ; Tartars, Goths,
Visigoths, Huns, Slovenes, Bulgars, Serbs, Arab and
negro corsairs, bloodthirsty Normans, Venetians, Mag-
yars, bands of adventurers from Catalonia and Aragon,
and finally the Turks — all of them " had a go " at one
time or another, and some of them came many times.
History has long ago lost count of the successive in-
vasions of Macedonia, nearly all of which aimed at
Salonica. The stout old fortifications have rumbled
80
"THE COVETED CITY*'
and shaken to a hundred sieges. The Vardar valley
and the road down from Seres have always been two
great arteries for war.
It was in 1481 that the Turks came to Salonica.
Murad II. chased out the Venetians, who, by the way,
built the White Tower, for long afterwards a Turkish
prison, and known both as the Bloody and the Janis-
saries Tower. This sturdy bastion, with its cells,
cachots and oubliettes, was throughout the Allied occu-
pation a signal station for the British Navy. Our
sailors (who raced the French for it and got there just
in time) found it in an amazingly dirty condition, but
soon had it spick and span and whitewashed. They
kept chickens and grew tomatoes on the crenulated
summit, and slept soundly in it unmindful of the trage-
dies and cruelties with which it was haunted.
The Turks soon " turkified " the city, and so it was
to remain for four centuries and a half. The famous
old Christian churches of St. Demetrios, St. Sophia, St.
George, and others, had minarets added to them and
became mosques. The city which, under the Venetians,
as on many previous occasions, had sunk very low in
population, was filled up with imported Turks, and
Salonica subsided into an Ottoman sleep.
The next invasion was a peaceful one, but one of the
most curious and interesting of all. At the end of the
fifteenth century the Jews of Spain began to arrive in
Salonica. They came as refugees from the terrors of
the Inquisition, and found imder the Turk a religious
tolerance which was lacking in the most powerful
Christian country of the time. They foimd Salonica
still largely depopulated, and in the course of time they
imposed their own Castilian tongue on most of the in-
habitants. The conmierce of the Jews, as hardly needs
saying, prospered. Salonica became a great Jewish
81 Q
SALONICA AND AFTER
centre, and attracted other Jews, who came from Spain,
Portugal, Italy and Provence. They soon had business
relations with their relatives and co-reUgionists in
Venice, Amsterdam, Genoa and the Hanseatic ports.
They became firmly rooted there, and for two hundred
years this immigration continued, in varying degrees.
And that is why, when the Allies in 1915 landed in a
Greek city, which less than three years before was
Turkish, they found they were in a markedly Jewish
community where a very large proportion of the popu-
lation still conversed among themselves in Spanish.
And those of the newcomers who spoke French had a
further surprise in finding that it was the only language
they needed in their dealings with all the people of any
education — and most of the children in Salonica can
now, with very little difficulty, obtain an excellent
education. Practically all the Jewish boys and girls
now speak French with all the ease of their traditional
Spanish, even though to the French ear it may not
always be in the purest accent. The reason is that the
Jews adopted French as their educational language in
1873, at which time the Israelite Alliance founded its
first school, and since that time the French themselves
have opened schools which supplement the Jewish
schools. The Jewish hamals, or street porters, who
carry huge loads on their back for a living; whose
hands are knotted, and beards matted, and whose backs
are perpetually bent beneath the load of the lowest form
of human labour, have sons who wear white collars and
bowler hats and work in banks and shops. The hamal
lives on dry bread and olives and a scrap of goats' milk
cheese, and sleeps in a hovel, but he somehow realises
that education is good for his children. Many of these
beneficiaries of such humble parental wisdom have emi-
grated to America and done well there, and later sent
82
*'THE COVETED CITY '^
for their parents. It thus happens that many a street
porter, who, like a human donkey, has padded for
years up and down the quays and uneven streets of
Salonica, his big, bare feet flattened out by the weights
he is perpetually carrying on his back, has been called
to New York and ended his declining years in ease and
comfort. He spoke only his Judaeo-Espagnol, but his
son was taught to speak French and do other wonderful
things of which the father had only the dimmest con-
ception, or none at all. So much for the benefits and
power of education.
I was invited once to an annual gathering of the
Israelite Alliance. There were many hundreds of Jews
there, male and female, and a great proportion of them
were once removed only from the street porter class.
But they rattled off French as though they had been
born to it, and most of them had a wide acquaintance
with French hterature. I don't suppose one of them
had heard of Meredith, but it is certain that a himdred
per cent, had read Pierre Loti — and, of course, Racine,
Moliere and the rest remained to them from their school
days. Some of the young men wore evening dress —
with more or less success. At supper (for which, by the
way, the caterer should have been shot) one found that
their education had not included the art of eating. But
there was no doubt about the quality of general in*
t'elligence, which was as sharp and direct as a needle.
It was quite easy to distinguish the various grades of
Jewish society; the wealthy merchants belonging to
old-established families; those who had found their
financial feet at a very recent date, but whose position
had been consolidated by the handsome profits made
in Salonica during the war ; those who were only on the
very first rung of the financial ladder; and those who
had not begun to climb at all. But here, at the Alliance
88
SALONICA AND AFTER
Israelite, all were on pretty much the same footmg,
although one could detect a sort of indulgent pity by
the wealthy for those not so fortunate in this world's
good things. It was a striking object lesson in Jewish
solidarity and clannishness. The Jew often protests
that he is regarded as a being apart. But see him at
a gathering of his own kind and you see that he makes
himself a being apart. It is not merely a question of
religion, but is very much a question of tribe.
The Jews of Salonica maintain all their ancient reli-
gious and social customs very rigidly, although, in
later generations, due to the spread of education, the
orthodoxy is little more than an outward form. But
most of them keep it up as being, as it were, a thing
for the general good. One saw this at a circumcision
ceremony one day, where the Grand Rabbi and many
lesser rabbis were congregated in great state. It was a
curious scene. The father, wearing his bowler hat
tilted back on his head to make room on his forehead
for the tefillin, or phylactery — containing a slip of
parchment inscribed with certain passages from the
Scriptures — was possibly a little conscious of the clash
between his own modem outlook and the ancient
tribal customs which he was helping to perpetuate.
" Ah," he said afterwards, with a laugh, " these are
old customs. They must be kept up. II vaut mieux.^^
But education is completely driving out the old Jewish
dress which, until recent times was much as in the
middle ages. Only the older men and women of the
lower classes are now to be seen in the ancient cos-
tumes ; the old men in long gown with slippered feet
and the old women in the quaint gaudy head-dress in
many colours, reminding one rather of a parrot, with
a long tail hanging down the back containing the hair,
and embroidered with seed pearls. The young men
84
"THE COVETED CITY"
have long been wearing bowler hats and the young
women would not dream of ever being seen as
mother is.
When the Allies went to Salonica the population of
the city was supposed to be something like 175,000. Of
these, somewhere between 90,000 and 100,000 were Jews,
and of these again a small proportion were registered
at foreign consulates, calling themselves Portuguese,
Italian or Spanish. A few years ago, it was possible to
become quite easily any nationality you liked — or as
many as you liked — but the coming of the Greeks made
that more difficult, and all those in Salonica who were
not definitely something else became Greek subjects.
The Greeks numbered somewhere about thirty thou-
sand. Next came about ten per cent, of Mussulmans,
and the rest were made up of Bulgars, Serbs, Vlachs,
Armenians, Albanians, Montenegrins, many real gip-
sies of the purest and dirtiest type, and all the various
sweepings one might expect to find in a seaport which
combines all the characteristics of the Levant and the
Balkans. Turkish, Greek and Judaeo-Espagnol are the
languages of the streets, with some Italian ; and Greek
and French the languages of the shops, restaurants and
cafes. The young Israelite who looked after the smaller
business side of The Balkan News and controlled the
many vendors did his complicated business in Greek,
Turkish, Jewish-Spanish and French, spoke German
and some Italian and made — more or less unconsciously
— marked headway in English.
A curious people, not yet mentioned, who stand
apart from all the rest are the Deunmehs, the name
being taken from the Turkish word for converts. These
people are of Spanish-Jew origin who became converted
to Islamism, and as they have kept very much to
themselves they may be regarded as Jewish Mussul-
85
SALONICA AND AFTER
mans. The conversion of these people came about in
a most interesting way. In 1655 a Jewish rabbi from
Smyrna, named Sabbati Cevi, an enthusiastic mystic,
landed in Salonica and proclaimed himself the Messiah.
His movement spread like wild-fire, and followers
flocked to him. The Turks allowed him a considerable
measure of Hberty, but he went to Constantinople, pro-
nounced himself to be the King of Kings, and talked
of dethroning sultans. There the Sultan of the day
soon found drastic methods which persuaded the rabbi
to become Mussulman on the spot. His many followers
in Salonica and elsewhere followed his example, and
the sect has remained to the present day. Much
mystery is supposed to attach to their form of religion.
The name they give themselves is " True Believers,"
and what one hears about their religion reminds one
of the mysterious Druses of Syria. They are said —
probably quite wrongly — to practise ancient Jewish
and Cabalistic rites, while outwardly showing all the
signs of Mussulmans. There are said to be about 15,000
in Salonica, and generally they belong to a fairly well-
to-do class. They have powerful representatives in
Constantinople and were well to the fore during the war
as successful merchants and profiteers, and also in the
councils of the sinister Committee of Union and Progress.
The Deunmeh young man of Salonica is, as a rule, very
correctly attired in European costume, but wears the
fez. He may be seen sitting in Floca's consuming
sweet cakes, his large liquid eyes reminding one rather
of over-ripe gooseberries.
Enough has been said, we may hope, to show that
Salonica is a varied and polyglot city, and the subject
can be overdone. Polyglottery, as one may call it,
ceases after a time to have any effect on one. The
babbling of many tongues becomes merely a noise, and
86
*'THE COVETED CITY"
one notices only that there are large crowds in the
streets, who get stupidly in your way, and not that
they are dressed in many costumes. But now and
again, even when you are used to it, this mingling of
races brings its special note of humour or tragedy. A
notable case was that of the tragedy of Floca's. Some
eight months or so after the fire, the cafe managed to
open again, and began by putting on some excellent
dishes for lunch. One day I noticed that the cooking
had distinctly fallen off. I asked the waiter why, and
he replied that the cook was dead, and tbld me some-
thing of the story.
Rachel, Mehmet and Sophocles were the three people
concerned, Jew, Turk and Greek. These are the real
names of the three actors in the drama. Rachel was a
young girl of sixteen or seventeen who served at the
Floca chocolate counter. She had her hair down her
back and a striking Greek profile, and the mere sight
of it made newcomers to Salonica begin to talk about
Aspasia and Pericles and other long-forgotten things.
But in spite of her long straight nose, Rachel was a
Jewess, and a nice quiet little miss. And she had
nothing to do with the tragedy beyond being the inno-
cent cause of it.
For a long time past, Rachel had been fiercely adored
by Mehmet, a Turk in his middle twenties, who helped
Sophocles, the cook, in the kitchen. I imagine he must
have had very little, if any, encouragement. Salonica
maidens, and especially the Salonica Jewish maidens,
are most extraordinarily careful of their reputations,
and all of tliem, whether Jew or Greek, immediately ask
a stranger " his intentions " at the earliest opportunity
if the acquaintance suggests developing beyond a two-
minute conversation. And Rachel, who served out
chocolates in nice boxes to British Officers and nursing
87
SALONICA AND AFTER
sisters, would certainly not let her thoughts dwell on
a Turk in the kitchen. But Mehmet, it appeals, talked
of it often while he was working with Sophocles, and
Sophocles, who was well past forty with a wife and
three children, would occasionally rally Mehmet on the
foolishness of being in love.
The tragedy came during one such conversation on
the eternal question. The two cooks were round the
corner from their kitchen, drinking coffee together in
a little hole of a cafe let into the wall of what had been
one of the largest hotels. Mehmet was talking on the
subject nearest his heart. And Sophocles, as was his
wont, chaffed him. This time it was too much for
Mehmet. Labouring under his obsession, and stung by
a remark which suggested that he could never attain
the object of his desire, he suddenly " saw red,'* and
plucking an automatic pistol from his pocket fired three
shots into the body of his companion. Poor Sophocles
dropped his coffee cup and rolled over, murmuring,
*' Oh, my children ! My poor wife ! " And then Meh-
met, with a cry of remorse, turned the pistol on him-
self. I was liold that he fired four shots into his own
waistcoat. That is all there is to the story, except
that Rachel left the chocolate counter and never went
back to it. But Rachel, Mehmet and Sophocles — Jew,
Turk and Greek in conflict — it is quite an epitome of
the Near East. As a rule, the mixed races there
quarrel only over their politics. It was unfortunate
for poor Sophocles that the question of love should have
intervened.
Salonica's unhappy gift of being a centre of trouble
has followed it uninterruptedly down to the most recent
times. In 1908, the young Turk revolution broke out
there ; the wonderful world-regenerating programme of
the new Committee of Union and Progress was pro-
88
"THE COVETED CITY"
claimed, and rabbis, Greek priests and Moslem imams
went about arm in arm and embraced ench other.
Abdul Hamid was deposed, brought to Salonica as a
prisoner, and lodged in the Villa Allatini. On October
9th, 1912, the Greek Army entered the city in triumph.
The Bulgars, who had raced down the Seres Road in
order tk) try to be there first, came in next day, though
in much smaller strength. In March of the next year,
King George I. of Greece was assassinated by a lunatic
Greek as he walked along the main street of his new
city, and many thousands of Britons are now familiar
with the poor Uttle obelisk, bearing withered wreaths,
which marks the spot on the pavement where he fell.
At the end of June, 1913, the delicate situation which
had all along existed between the Greeks and the Bul-
gars still in the town broke out into battle. There
was a hot fight in the White Tower and the St. Sophia
quarter before the Bulgars were overpowered. The
fight in and around St. Sophia must have been a very
pretty one. Bulgars were all round the gallery of tihe
tall minaret and the Greeks peppered them from below.
The marble balustrade is still all pitted with bullet
holes, and some of the Bulgars are said to have been
finally thrown from the top. Then came the Great
War, making of Salonica one of the busiest hives of
humanity in the world. And finally the all-consuming,
devastating fire ; but we must give that a little place
all by itself.
SO
CHAPTER VIII.
The Fire.
Saturday, August 18th, 1917, is a day that will be
long remembered by many thousands of members of
the Saloniea Force. They may not always be able to
recall the date itself, but they will never forget the fire
that occurred on it, when nearly a square mile of the
city was burned down in a few hours.
In those days I lived in a very pleasant and roomy
apartment above one of the town's big shops. It was
a very hot day, and the local Sirocco — a hot wind from
the direction of the Vardar — was blowing half a gale,
and had been doing so for two or three days. I was
sitting at tea, clad as lightly as the convenances would
allow, when Christina, the Greek maid from Constantin-
ople, came in with some more hot water.
'' You know there is a big j&re," she said. " They
say half the town is burning."
One accepted this as mere exaggeration, and so it
was at the moment. But a little later I went up on to
the flat roof to look. From here one had a view of
practically the whole of the city and its surroundings.
And sure enough, away up the hill in the north-western
corner of Turkish Town, there was a big blaze in pro-
gress. Through glasses I could see a sailor standing
on a roof semaphoring with his arms. It looked as
though a considerable area was alight, and the hot wind
was blowing strongly and steadily down towards our
part of the city. Then I became aware that dozens of
90
THE FIRE
the springless, rattling carts that make life hideous,
were dashing over the cobbles and up the hill, presum-
ably having been engaged for salvage work. But big
as the fire looked it seemed a very remote thing, having
no concern with one's own existence. Naturally a lot
of these half- wooden houses would be burnt down, and
Turks and Jews would be homeless ! But life is some-
times hard and one must expect these things ! I went
down again and began to make preparations for a
journey up Monastir way.
Perhaps rather less than an hour later I went up to
have another look. Jove, but the fire had made pro-
gress ! In the foreground people were standing on roofs,
free from concern and enjoying the spectacle. But it
began to look ugly, with that dry, hot wind like a forced
draught blowing continuously. I went down to the
street, where the car was waiting.
" Mason," I said, " I don't think we shall go up-
country to-day. It looks to me as though there won't
be any Salonica left to-night."
" Very good, sir," said Mason. " I heard there was
a fire somewhere."
Mason, who was a com merchant in a comfortable
way of business at home, was always like that.
At the office I found that people were becoming
slightly concerned, although there was no sense of im-
pending trouble. The natives of the city were con-
vinced that it would not spread far. They too felt,
although they did not say it in so many words, tliat
although the fire might destroy the native quarters, it
would not have the bad taste to come down into the
more or less civilised parts of the city.
I decided to go up and have a look at the scene of
the conflagration. Egnatia Street was jammed, and
we met the first refugees carrying bits of furniture,
91
SALONICA AND AFTER
pushing through the press. A little way up one of the
side streets, that climbs the hill northwards, we had
to leave the car. Turks and Jews, with wild eyes, were
hurrying down, carrying all sort's of things. A little
further and we were on the edge of the burning quarter ;
and the tide of distracted, homeless people was flowing
all around us.
It was an extraordinary sight, and one which but
for the sewing machines and smashed wardrobe mirrors
which littered the narrow streets and alleys, might
have been plucked straight from Biblical times. This
was the heart lof the Salonica Ghetto, where a great
proportion of the population still preserved their an-
cient costumes. Here were to be seen, in scores, white-
bearded patriarchs wearing fezzes and their old-time
gaberdine costume known as the intari, rushing about
frenziedly in spite of the skirts that clung round their
slippered feet. Their women-kind rushed about with
them, holding their children by the hand and sobbing,
shouting and imploring. It was an amazing and a sad
scene ; the wailing families, the crash of falling houses
as the flames tore along, swept by the wind; and in
the narrow streets a slow-moving mass of pack donkeys,
loaded carts, hamals carrying enormous loads; Greek
boy scouts (who v/ere doing excellent work) ; soldiers
of all nations, as yet unorganised to do anything defin-
ite ; ancient wooden fire-engines that creaked pathe-
tically as they spat out ineffectual trickles of water;
and people canying beds (hundreds of flock and feather
beds), wardrobes, mirrors, pots and pans, sewing
machines (every family made a desperate endeavour
to save its sewing machine) and a general collection of
ponderous rubbish. The evacuation of each street
came in a panic rush as its inhabitants realised that
their homes also were doomed. This attitude of only
93
THE FIBE
believing at the very last moment that there was any
danger for their own homes or business establishments,
marked the whole progress of the fire until the moment
when it had reached the edge of the sea and was blazing
along nearly a mile of front. The inhabitants of every
separate line or section of streets were convinced that
the conflagration was going to pass them by. A quarter
of an hour later they were fleeing for their lives, bearing
all sorts of absurd household goods snapped up in
panic moments. As it was the Jewish Sabbath many
of the big shops were closed, and jewellers and others
did not appear to try and save their stocks until a
late hour. At ten o'clock that night, people in hotels
on the water front did not think their sleeping arrange-
ments would be disturbed — and were bolting with their
hand luggage at eleven.
Amid the medley and the uproar of the fire up in
the Ghetto I found the P.M. It was a difficult situation
for any administrative officer to face. The local means
for fighting a fire were nil, or next to it. It was not
easy to say in whose hands lay the material and moral
responsibility for tackling the fire, and here w^as a case
in which a mixed command presented difficulties.
Moreover, the fire had attained its alarming proportions
with such a sudden rush that everybody was taken off
their guard. And the " native " quarter seemed
a place off everybody's beat. The Allies only visited
it for a sfroll or from curiosity. It was, in a vague
way, nobody's business — until suddenly, like a thun-
der-clap, it became apparent that it was everybody's
business. At about this time a company of the Dur-
hams arrived from the garrison battalion down in
Beshtchinar Gardens, to form a cordon. But that did
not help to put out the fire, and there were still no
fire-engines, and little water to go through them if they
98
SALONICA AND AFTER
had existed. The two or three wooden boxes on wheels,
which were emitting small jets of water in response to
urgent hand-pumping, were laughable. One of them
was marked " Sun Fire Office, 1710," and it might
easily have been built in that year. Further Allied
patrols now came up, French, Italian and the rest,
and here and there officers were attempting to organise
or direct fire-fighting operations. But everything was
against them — the crowds, the narrow, jammed streets,
the lack of everything useful, and above all the fire,
which by now might have got the better of the com-
bined resources of London and New York. A little
later dynamite was tried, but the flames leaped
laughingly over any breaches made. It had been
thought earlier on that the Rue Egnatia, a street 30 ft.
wide, which, running east and west, cut off the native
quarter from the more modern half, might serve
as a barrier. But when the time came, the flames
cleared the street without noticing it. The hot wind
blowing behind created a huge forced draught.
Leaping ahead of the actual flames was a cloud of in-
candescent air, bearing great flakes of fire. This played
on buildings ahead, prepared them nicely for the
burning, and a falling flake of fire did the rest.
An hour's experience up in the fire zone was pretty
conclusive evidence that the whole of Salonica, with
the exception of the long suburb stretching along the
sea eastwards, was in danger. And yet, although one
felt this, it was difficult thoroughly to realise it and
act on it ; to digest the idea that some time during
the night one would be homeless, and counted among
the refugees. I returned to the office, where I found
the general atmosphere only a shade more grave, and
rang up the Local Transport Officer, down near the
docks: —
94
THE FIRE
" That the L.T.O. . . I say. you know there's a
fire on."
"Yes, we've heard there's a fire."
" Well, don't think I'm alarmed or in a panic or
anything of that, but it seems to me it's coming
right down to the water's edge. In that case, do you
think you could lend me a lorry later on in the evening,
so as to get as much stuff as possible away and bring
the paper out again ? "
The L.T.O. promised that this should be done if I
rang up later. And there being little else to do at the
moment, except to impress on all the natives that the
office stood an even chance of being burned down, and
to say what should be done in case of evacuation, two
of us went out to dinner, and walked down Venizelos
Street to the Club with the glow of the fire at our backs.
The Club was looking particularly brilliant for this,
its last night. Quite a number of fair Athenians had
come up to Salonica in the train of those who had
followed M. Venizelos, and most of them happened to
be present. The two dining rooms were full, and
everybody seemed to be in the best of spirits. The
fire, several acres of it, was now less than a quarter of
a mile away in a straight line, and still coming onwards,
but you would not have thought it to see the happy
crowd in the club. Here and there champagne corks
were popping. One could not help thinking of Nero
and his fiddle. From time to time one of the attendant
swains went out on the balcony and looked up the
street. " Yes, it seemsi to be gaining," he would say,
and sit down. In moments of quiet one could now
hear the roar of the conflagration — a terrible sound.
And while we were sitting here at an excellent dinner,
and while other people were sitting down to dinner at
the Hotel Splendide and elsewhere, some fifty thousand
95
SALONICA AND AFTER
wretched people already driven from their homes were
rushing about frantically, carrying heavy loads a short
distance down towards safety, only to cast the bulk
away in the streets as they tired of the weight. Occa-
sionally the club waiters asked, with a touch of anxiety,
if one thought the fire would come down our way. The
firm impression in the Club was that it would not.
The buildings in the modern quarter were " trop
solide." Therefore to dinner again. . . . When the
turn of the modern buildings came, they went up like
fireworks, in spite of their undoubted solidity.
It was nine o'clock when we left the club. A few
minutes walk back towards the fire and we saw that
the long wooden roof of the bazaar, which led from the
Rue Egnatia down Venizelos Street towards the water
front, had caught fire. It was the beginning of the
end of the commercial quarter.
Several hours before this, two new British, motor
fire-engines had entered into action and were doing
splendid work. They had only arrived from England
a few days before, and were not completely ready for
service. One was up at the Base Motor Transport
Depot at Kalamaria, and the other at Marsh Pier.
When the call came at the Base M.T., a scratch crew
was raised on the spot and the engine was down on
the quay and dipping its tail into the salt water within
twenty-five minutes. Both engines did splendid work,
and at one time as much as 4,000 feet of hose was
coupled on to one of them. In one case, the driver of
the engine — which, of course, once it had driven the
vehicle down, became a pumping engine — ^remained at
his post without sleep from eight o'clock on the Satur-
day night until six o'clock on the following Tuesday
morning. One engine was in action for seventeen
days and the other for ten, as once the first rush of the
96
CO
THE FIRE
conflagration was over there were many sporadic out-
breaks which had to be attended to, and parts of the
city smouldered for a fortnight.
But brave as their effort was the two engines could
not stay the rush of that wall of flame which came on
like a forest fire. On coming out of the club I decided
to go up to my flat roof again. From this the sight
was majestic. One looked into a sea of vivid red, out
of which were thrust the long white needles of minarets.
A few people were on the roof looking at the scene
with a sort of fatalistic calm. Now was the time if
ever to pack one's bags. That big and calm room
which had been such a haven on rnany a hot summer's
afternoon would shortly cease to be. I wandered round
by the light of a candle (the electric light had now
failed), packing some things and rejecting others —
which afterwards I missed badly. But it was extra-
ordinary what a calm, insouciant *' let it rip " sort of
mood was engendered by that roaring monster up the
street. Since all Salonica was going to bum, what did
a few personal effects matter ? It is absurd, but that
is how many people were affected.
I rang up for the lorry, and it came promptly. By
now the streets in this quarter were repeating, on a
larger and more crowded scale, what one had seen in
the late afternoon up the hill. The hordes of refugees,
like a gallant army fighting a rearguard battle, only
evacuated one street as the enemy forced them to do
it, and then congregated in the next. Merchants were
throwing their stocks out on the pavements and then
frantically appealing for transport to remove them.
There were shrieks and cries, the crash of falling build-
ings, the sound of splintering glass — and now, louder
than ever the unvarying roar of the fire. The Balkan
News had been printing away up to ten o'clock, but
97 H
SALONICA AND AFTER
at that hour everybody deserted the machine to go and
see about their own affairs — and small blame to them.
When it came to saving the type and other things we
found there was nobody to help. All the same, we
began — and then came the news that the street out-
side was blocking up. One end was impassable because
of the hoses that ran up Venizelos Street towards the
bazaar. A heav^^- lorry could not possibly go over
those. And the other end was rapidly choking up with
a jam of vehicles of all sort's which became thicker
with each minute. It would not do to have the destruc-
tion of an Army lorry on one's conscience ! We packed
in all that we could, saved the precious reference
library, closed the iron doors of the machine room
downstairs, hoping that they would do their bit, and
prepared to leave.
The sky over the whole of the '' solid " commercial
quarter was now one incandescent blush of sparks.
People at the Splendide — where £60,000 had just been
spent on a new tea room and other improvements to
catch the stream of gold that flowed from the Allies —
were now rushing to their bedrooms to collect what
they could carry away. The multitude of refugees was
driven into the last parallel of streets that lay near the
quay. And at last everybody realised that even these
would go. The refugees flowed to their furthest limit,
into the docks. There one saw them in tho'usands,
squatting hopelessly on their beds and bundles ; babies
whimpering ; little boys and girls sitting very still and
looking vacantly before them; here and there a be-
mused parent still clutching a sewing machine or a
mirror; a thousand unhappy and pitiful sights. The
roar of the fire was now like the noise of a battle. And
late in the night, obeying a sudden change of wind, the
fiflmaes executed a quick flanking movement and cut
98
THE FIRE
right across the main street on to the sea. From this
moment there was only one way out of the fire area,
and that was westwards, along the Monastir road.
But just before this a magic change had come over
the scene. The British Army, which up to that moment
had belonged strictly to the British Army, suddenly
became everybody's property. An order had been
given over the telephone and forthwith, from all direc-
tions, our unrivalled transport service poured its innu-
merable lorries and motor vans into the town. Their
order was simply to take up the refugees and what they
had saved, and hurry them out of danger. Up to that
moment, a rich merchant could not have hired a lorry
for the evening for £1,000. After it, the tatterdemalions
of Salonica were given all the care of a fine lady being
handed into her carriage by her footman. The Allies
were all working now, but the British did very much
the largest share. Our men behaved with the utmost
care and consideration. "Come on. Mother, you next,"
they shouted, and tucked a wrinkled dame in a comic-
opera costume and her family of three generations into
a capacious lorry. The vehicles were loaded up at a
tremendous rate, and as fast as they were full went
off along the Monastir Road, deposited their charges
and returned for more. There were now eighty thou-
sand people homeless to deal with.
The Navy did its share, too. Lighters were run into
the sea wall, charged with a medley of people, and
taken off to various ships in the harbour. The sailors
were just like the men of the motor transport — cheerful,
chaffing and tender, carrying children and old people
on board and depositing them as carefully as though
they were brittle and might snap. The gallant old K.
lighters, born of the Dardanelles campaign, never
carried stranger loads than on that night.
99
SALONICA AND AFTER
The fire now had a firm grip on the main Hne of
buildings fronting the sea. It was the last phase, and
it lasted in its dreadful glory for four or five hours.
A number of caiques, moored to the sea wall, began to
blaze with the heat, and were hurriedly pushed off and
dealt with. A motor car, caught en passage, blazed in
the middle of the road like a torch. And then, one
regarded a scene to which only Dore cooild have done
justice. Over three-quarters of a mile of front was
blazing at one time — a great cliff of orange and white
flame, and the thousands of refugees still crowded in
and about the port were black pigmies against a gigan-
tic fcrimson background — poor, puny humanity helpless
before the blind force of nature in an evil mood. The
sea reflected the fierce all-pervading glare of the shore.
It seemed as if the world were blazing. Nothing mat-
tered. One's face was black and eyes smarting, but
everything, in a way, seemed very natural. Was it
only eight or nine hours ago that Christina had come
in with the hot water for tea to say that '' half the city
is burning " ? It might have been a year. A new block
of buildings catching fire and going up like a pyro-
technic display caused no sensation. Naturally the
poor old place burned. So would you, if you had to
stand a heat like that. ... In the middle of it all,
with the smoke and glare and the noise, and Tommy
still working like a Trojan with the refugees, I remem-
ber buying a 2d. slice of melon fit the comer of the
quay and thinking it one of the best things I had ever
tasted. The melon vendor, as he sliced up his luscious
fruit, seemed to have the air of regarding catastrophes
as excellent things.
Somewhere about three o'clock, the club, " my beau-
tiful club," as Sir Herbert Tree might have said, began
to go. That was the end, then, '' Finish Salonique ! "
100
THE FIRE
Flat gone, office gone, club blazing ! What was there
left? I thought of the club's solid English furniture;
of the pleasant tea hour; the beautiful ladies from
Athens ; the cheerful games of French billiards with
the A. P.M., and everything else that made life bear-
able in Salonica. Poor old club ! No more dinners on
the balcony after a hard day's work. This was being
homeless indeed.
At this time, the port itself, including French G.H.Q.,
was very much in danger, and the efforts of our two
fire engines were directed to saving it, which they
succeeded in doing. And at something after four
o'clock in the morning, dazed by looking at the gigantic
misery and destruction wrought by this blazing mon-
ster who had appeared apparently from nowhere and
swept down on us like a whirlwind, I began to look for
a lorry myself. Half-an-hour later I walked into the
Mess of 244 M.T. Company out on the Monastir Road,
where various refugees had already arrived, and, lying
down on the floor, went to sleep.
At eleven o'clock the next morning I penet!rated into
the incandescent ruins of the town to find the remains
of the office — and found it intact. It was the biggest
surprise of my life. By something like a miracle, a
corner block, including the Bank of Athens, had
escaped, although all around it nothing but red-hot
walls were left. At the high iron doors leading inside,
the little Turkish kavass stood grinning for joy at my
approach. He tried to pretend that he had stayed
there all the time, and began speaking earnestly of his
own devotion, but I found it hard to believe him. If
it were so, he ought to have been cooked alive. A few
weeks later a concert party sang a new song which
said : —
" The Devil took Orosdi Back's,
But Heaven saved The Balkari News.**
101
SALONICA AND AFTER
It may have been so, in both instances. One cannot
say. We certainly deserved it. But at any rate we
" came out " two days later, and as, for the time
being, there were no means of turning the printing
machine, the gallant R.E. Survey Company litho-
graphed six thousand copies, which were despatched
up-country with a full account of the fire, in order to
let the Army know exactly what had happened.
Then followed a miserable month if ever there was
one. Wreckage, dust and misery everywhere. No
water to wash in. A little petrol engine, installed by
more excellent R.E.'s, coughing down on the pavement
below, turning the machine. Explosions everywhere
as the French sappers blew up dangerous buildings, with
flying bricks thudding down on the roof. And Salonica
with the life and soul gone out of it ; a heap of rubble
with not a hotel left, nor a restaurant, nor any place
to go, save only the White Tower Restaurant. It was
very hot. One lunched in the office off tinned things
and worked in a sort of daze. Oh, for the club !
And Salonica never recovered during the occupation
of the Allies. It remained a " washed-out " city; the
wreckage was too big to repair. All sorts of grandiose
schemes were conceived for its renascence. Perhaps
they will materialise. We shall see. There is certainly
a splendid opportunity of building a great city worthy
of the site.
The fire began at three o'clock on the afternoon of
August 18th, and the fiercest of the burning was not
over until 32 hours later, up to which time the build-
ings of the port and the French G.H.Q. were still in
danger. It is finally believed that it began in a little
wooden house in the Rue Olympos, where the refugees
were cooking and spilt some oil. It reminds one of the
great fire of Chicago, which was begun by a cow kick-
102
THE FIRE
ing over a lamp in a stable. The Salonica fire is said
to be the greatest in insurance history; that is, it
brought about the greatest destruction by the sole
agency of fire, without the conttibutory cause, for in-
stance, of earthquake, as in the case of San Francisco
and Valparaiso. The area of destruction was more than
one million square yards and 9,500 houses and commer-
cial buildings of all kinds and degrees were burned
down. The damage was estimated at more than
£8,000,000, of which nine-tenths was insured, British
companies being by far the most heavily involved. The
greatest loss of all was the magnificent Byzantine
Church of St. Demetrius, famed among archaeologists
over the whole world and dating back to the 5th cen-
tury. St. Demetrius is the patron Saint of Salonica,
and is supposed to have saved it from many misfor-
tunes, but his church, alas ! was in the main ti'ack of
the fire, and on this occasion the Saint's power was
unavailing. The famous church of St. Sophia, dating
back to the 6th centtiry and built by the architect of the
greater edifice at Constantinople, was saved. This was
partly due to the wide courtyard in which it stands,
but at one side the fire finished so close to the church
that one can easily understand many people thinking
that a miraculous intervention saved the building. St.
George's Church, another very fine edifice, which is
one of the oldest Christian churches in the world and
dates back to the 3rd Century, was happily not in the
ttack of the fire. There were 55,000 Jewish refugees,
12,000 Greeks, and 10,000 Mussulmans. The difficulties
of finding shelter for these at once were very great.
Many were sheltered in camps organised by the Allies,
and the British at once gave 1,800 tents which pro-
vided shelter for over 7,000 people in three or four
camps, where many of them made acquaintance with
108
SALONICA AND AFTER
constant cleanliness for the first time Lq their lives, and
on the whole took to it fairly well.
There were many warm tributes, individual and
otherwise, made to the work of the British during and
after the fire. Of these, we will tiake one, from the
Greek journal Phos ;
"The refugees were led on the night of f rightfulness
and destruction with indescribable affection far from
the flames and found themselves under the protection
of an elect race whose name is spoken with gratitude
by those who have been so greatly tried. . . The life
of these ardent apostles of humanity and goodness
amongst us has been unstained and clean, and the
Greek appreciation of it has been sincere and warm. . .
Although there has been but little time in which so
difficult an installation could be effected, nevertheless
British energy, which is the marvellous and amazing
quality of this great race, was able to gather humanely,
shelter and feed a great number of refugees. The houses
in which the refugees are sheltered are well-roofed and
the tents placed in perfect line with English exactitlide.
There lives an entire population which yesterday was
happy, but to-day is ruined and living on the charity
of powerful friends."
It is a little flowery, but we must remember that this
comes natural to the Greek who is writing with a pen
dipped in enthusiasm. Tommy blushed as he read it
in The Balkan News. But there can be no doubt that
he earned it.
10 i
CHAPTER IX.
Two Balkan Days — January and July.
January :
In Salonica when the wind blows very cold or very
hot all the inhabitants refer to it as le vent du Vardar,
I think it must be because most of them have never
been beyond the confines of their native city, and the
region of the Vardar River must seem to them a hyper-
borean place from whence comes everything that is
unpleasant — ^including Bulgars as well as North Winds.
But here we are, three men in a Ford at ten o'clock in
the morning, up on the Serbian Front, quite a con-
siderable number of miles beyond the Vardar, and the
wind that comes sweeping down off the mountain cutis
like a knife. We hope to arrive back in Salonica some-
where about tea-time, and when we get there we shall
be able to assure the inhabitants, if they are sufficiently
interested in the matter, that the Vardar is quite inno-
cent of their present discomfort.
We wrap up with extreme care, and are soon bumping
along the rutty track. It is impossible to take the
direct way "owing to the state of the roads," and so
we must make a long detour, along what is optimisti-
cally described as a really good road. From the state of
the route we are travelling, it is possible to get a faint
idea of what the other must be like. Our wheels are
soon nearly a foot deep in sticky mud, and the car
slides along with a sort of zig-zag motion that reminds
one somehow of a roller skater. We are travelling, un-
105
SALONICA AND AFTER
fortunately, almost in the teeth of the wind, and it
comes whistling like a bullet. In a very short time,
in spite of fur gloves, my fingers are aching, and in
spite of a rampart of sheepskin rug round the legs,
my toes follow suit. The sky is a dull grey ; the mists
that hang over the mountains swirl aside occasionally
to show their snow-covered tops. It must be dreadful
manning the Serbian trenches up there.
Three-quarters of an hour through the mud, which
here and there is being flattened out by small gangs
of native labourers shrouded in all manner of strange
garment's, and we come to the village of Subotsko. It
is as typical a Balkan village of the larger size as could
be found in the whole of the Peninsula. As we turn
into the main broad street a minaret stands out,
sharply silhouetted against a massif of the big mountain
range beyond — a pleasing picture-postcard effect. A
stream runs through the street, and of course there is
deep mud everywhere. There are bullock teams and
small boys in voluminous trousers who prod the bul-
locks to the side with urgent cries, and keep a sidelong
eye to the car that comes grinding and side-slipping
up behind them. There are some quite genteel-looking
galleried houses in wood, and in a sort of square stand
some scores of men in groups, most of them wearing
hooded sheepskin coats, so that from the back they
look like large candle-extinguishers. There is evidently
some sort of market being held.
A sharp turn out of the village and we have the
wind behind us. The change is astonishing, and for
a moment it is hard to believe that the blast is still
blowing with the same strength and bitterness. But
the grass and rushes at the roadside that flatten away
Ijefore us show that there is no change except to our-
selves, and even more so is this shown by the de-
106
TWO BALKAN DAYS— JANUARY AND JULY
meanour of the local Macedonians who came trotting
along towards us on their donkeys to market. Some
of them sit backwards on their miserable little mounts,
preferring to meet the weather that way. Those of
whose faces we get a peep as they sit humped and
shrouded, have the appearance of men who are being
frozen alive and detest the process. But in spite of
their crying misery, they cannot help looking picttir-
esque in their many-coloured garments. Doubtless they
are quite unaware of it, and would be very angry if
they knew of it, but to the Western eye they bring
a touch of comfort into that cheerless landscape.
A little further and we come suddenly on one of those
British camps of light motor transport which have
done such great work on the Serbian front. There are,
apparently, many hundreds of extremely small, black
motor-cars all in action at the same moment, and the
sudden impression, as we round the side of a hill, is
of nothing so much as an ants' nest suddenly disturbed.
Perhaps they are swarming or something. If Maeter-
linck were here, one feels that he would be moved to
write a book about their strange habits and ways of
life. And yet these strange little creatures, which have
apparently popped out of holes in the ground, gave
the Serbs the vital help that was necessary in their
victory away up on Kajmakchalan, for no other trans-
port could have done the same arduous work.
Another hour through the mud, with the road
roguishly trying to slip away from us, and we run into
a large village, which holds part of the Headquarters
of a Serbian Army. We are to lunch here, and, with
luck, hope to leave somewhere about two o'clock, but
knowing Serbian hospitality it is doubtful. Following
our lunch, our host sits with us long at the table— the
other members of the mess have gone back to their
107
SALONICA AND AFTER
work — talking on many things that are interesting,
including the Serbs' great regard for England and their
hopes in us.
We take the road again at last. The wind seems
colder than ever. Half-an-hour or so along a good
side-track and we strike the main Monastir Road — the
chief artery for the French, Italians, Serbs, Greeks and
Russians in this part of the world. There are about
45 miles of it before we get to Salonica, and it is a
bleak prospect even with the wind behind our backs.
It is a flat and dreary countryside, largely marshland,
and much of it subject to inundations. The mountains
are behind us, and there is nothing w^orth looking at.
Squashed together on the narrow seat, we huddle still
further within ourselves, sink our chins far down into
our coat collars, and subside intb a stupor of discon-
tent. Occasionally the driver beats a hand against his
coat, but that is all the sign of life we give. Suddenly
something flashes past us that strikes a simultaneous
shout of laughter out of the three of us, a shout which
is cut off and whisked away instanter in the whistling
wind. Sitting, a solitary passenger, in the back of a
car driven by a French officer, is a black soldier. His
face is not so much muffled round as bandaged, but as
he whizzes past us a turn of the whites of his eyes in
his black face gives a lightning impression of bewil-
dered discomfort, of gollywog misery, that is irresistibly
comic. For five miles at least, that sudden explosion
of mirth warms and comforts us.
The minaret of a fine mosque comes into view, that
of Yenidje-Vardar, surely one of the most unhappy
small towns in the world. On this bare plain it is
frozen in winter and scorched pitilessly in summer.
There are fragments of transports belonging to all our
Allies as we go through its main street, and two French
108
TWO BALKAN DAYS— JANUARY AND JULY
soldiers bargaining at a miserable little shop for onions.
Then the dreary road again, as before, with more
chilled natives on donkeys; and straining bullocks,
their heads lowered to the blast. A little further on
something exciting happens. Standing in the coarse
grass, within 30 yards of the roadside, are rows and
rows of wild geese, feeding tranquilly, undisturbed
by our passing. A hundred yards further is another
regiment of them, stiff and regular as Prussian guards-
men. The sight is not to be borne. With a certain
shot gun which ought to have been in the car, we could
have secured a bag that would have been an appre-
ciable addition to the food supplies of the B.S.F. But
an idea strikes me. Kept in the car, for possible emer-
gencies quite other than this, is a large service Webley.
My friend, a fire-breathing fellow, has a large automatic
in his kit. At least we will have a shot of some kind.
We have brilliantly divined the point that the geese
are in no way alarmed at the noise of a motor so long
as it keeps running. So the car is turned round and we
stalk the geese, pistols in hand. The raising of an arm
disturbs the first flock, and they are in the air before
we can fire at them. With the second flock we are
much more careful, and take to our stomachs at the
roadside, just behind a low bank. At thirty yards we
fire into the brown, and put in another shot each as
they take to the wing. But to our disgust, nothing
remains on the ground, and we take refuge in the car
as quickly as possible and bowl off again.
Over the tumbling Vardar, brown in flood, and most
repellent looking. The two Senegalese on guard at the
bridge peer at us from out of their reed shelters. Natives
of the scorching desert, they have as cold a job as the
wit of man could devise. It would be interesting
to know what they think of the Great Wax.
109
SALONICA AND AFTER
The road is still uninteresting and always bumpy.
Past an aviation camp, the great canvas hangars
swelling in and out with fantastic curves as the untiring
wind smites and bulKes them. Flying does not seem
a pleasant thing on such an evening. And somewhere
about now a refrain comes into my head, which sticks
obstinately there all the way to Salonica : —
" Some buttered toast, a cup of tea, and Thou,
Beside me sitting at the fireside,
And Wimbledon were Paradise enow."
But do they still have buttered toast in England ? And
if not, is it really worth going home ? Yes, decidedly
Yes ! There is still Thou. Damn the cold !
Miles and miles of British camps and dumps now —
millions and millions of pounds worth of material. A
little corner of the great war, but even so there is
possibly far more in this one stretch than we sent for
the whole South African Campaign. And finally
Salonica. The trams are "off" (no fuel), most of the
street lights are out, and the ruined front is a dismal
place. But what matter ? We are near our destination
now. And shortly afterwards we enter a most wonder-
ful and cheery mess-room, miraculously contrived out
of petrol boxes and other odds and ends. The sherry
and bitters tastes excellently. There is a blazing log
fire. "What's the news from Serbia?" someone asks.
"Great news," I reply; "I'm beginning to feel my toes
again."
July,
An unflecked sky of perfect, dazzling blue overhangs
the world as we roll out of the little Greek village of
Ano and begin the long descent down to the shore of
the Gulf of Orfano. We are in a region where insect
life abounds in astonishing quantities and where enor-
110
TWO BALKAN DAYS— JANUARY AND JULY
mous thistles grow to eight feet high, so that the
Scotsmen in the Brigade whose Headquarters we are
just leaving feel strangely humble as they have never
done before. It is pleasant to sit in the big open
Vauxhall in which D.A.D.O.S. does his rounds for the
Division. On such a hot day as this an enclosed Ford
van would be like a stove. We pass odd soldiers on
the road, and little strings of transport. All our men
are wearing sun helmets, open shirts, and "shorts."
They are really half naked, and their axms, knees,
chests and faces are baked a dark brown. The shorts
can be let down, and in the evening, when the mos-
quitos begin to bite, are tucked into the puttees for
protection.
It is a blazing, glaring, sizzling hot day — a Mace-
donian midsummer day at its very worst. Down on
the sea shore we halt for a little while in a dump, where
D.A.D.O.S. has something to do. The bare, ugly
ground is red and baked as hard as a brick and the
heat strikes off the corrugated iron sheds in waves. As
one sits there in the car, inert, a wandering M.O. drops
off his horse for a chat. I mention casually that both
D.A.D.O.S. and myself had a bad night, in our little
whitewashed rooms at the Brigade H.Q. owing to the
exasperating attentions of innumerable tiny sand flies.
''Keep a watch on yourself," says the M.O., "there's
a lot of sand-fly fever about." As D.A.D.O.S. climbs
back into the car the M.O. says he will take a photo-
graph of us as a souvenir. "Never know what may
happen to you, you know," he laughs. He tells us
that our faces are in deep shadow. "Take your helmets
off." We do, and the heat scorches our unprotected
heads. The helmets are back again within five seconds,
but it feels none too soon.
We pull up at Stavros, and lunch on the "stoop" of
111
SALONICA AND AFTER
a pleasant little hut on the very edge of the sea. For
some reason or other we both want to make an early
start after lunch. ''Catch me doing an afternoon
journey in this heat," laughs our host. "It will be
scorching along the valley. Why not go after tea ?'*
But we insist that we must get along and foohshly keep
to our intention.
It is comparatively cool among the trees of the Ren-
dina Gorge, but soon we are oiit in the open at the
beginning of the long valley in which lie the big lakes
of Beshik and Langaza. There are large herds of goats
spread across the narrow, bimipy track, which scatter
with great fright and scuffling, as we approach. And
before we have gone very far we become aware that,
even with the wind of our passage to temper the heat,
the early afternoon of mid-July is not the time to travel
along the Langaza Valley. The wind that fans our
faces has nothing fresh and invigorating in it, but is
languid and stifling. The dust whirls up from our
wheels and hangs in dense clouds behind us. With the
exception of an occasional goatherd, there is not a soul
to be seen. The earth is one monotonous dun khaki
colour. The short, burnt grass is alive with shrilling,
leaping grasshoppers. Theirs is the predominant noise
by day. The hoarse croaking of frogs fills the air at
night. These are the two voices of Macedonia in
summer time.
At the further end of Lake Beshik we come across
a lonely signal station, and decide that it is time for
an early tea. The sapper who appears out of the little
telegraph hut provides us with some hot water, but
the beverage as drunk out of an enamelled iron mug
is somehow not inviting. The mug is hot, and the tea
is hot, and the world generally is sizzling. As we sit
in the car we are baked and fried aJlve. It hurts the
n-2
British Transport in Macedonia :
A typical road on a summer day.
TWO BALKAN DAYS— JANUARY AND JULY
eyes to look at the track. The glint of polished metal
on the car dazzles like the blinding flash of magnesium.
We realise that our host at Stavros was right and that
there is no sense in being abroad in such weather —
even in a motor car — unless imperative necessity
demands it. It is a wise rule which enjoins on the
whole army to rise at five, get as much work as is
possible done before eleven, and rest during the baking
hours between twelve and five in the afternoon.
We look down a shelving slope at the blue waters of
the lake, and the temptation is too much to be resisted.
Why be baked in the car when we can splash about in
that ! We take the car as near as possible to the edge,
undress, and walk carefully over the stones and sand
to the lake. But we keep our sun helmets on, and so
attired take to the water. A sun helmet proves to be
an awkward thing with which to swim, as whichever
way you turn it dips deeply into the water. But it is
better than risking immediate sunstroke. And we soon
become aware that the water of the lake is of a piece
with the rest of the world — warm. It is a quite un-
refreshing bathe. We wade out again and start to
dress. As we squat down in the sand we become aware
that we are being bitten. "More of those confounded
sand-flies," says D.A.D.O.S. "Can't get rid of 'em."
We push on, bump and roll and switchback along
many miles of track, pass Lake Langaza, with its primi-
tive villages and fishing boats, skirt the slopes of beauti-
ful Hortiach, and after a long time come out at
General's Corner, and so on to the broad level highway
of the Seres Road. The afternoon sun blazes down on
it, and it is practically deserted — a blinding white
ribbon running through a khaki landscape — until we
come to Guvesne with its dumps. Here there are signs
of life. The camps are beginning to stir after their mid-
118 I
SALONICA AND AFTER
day torpor. A little further on we see, climbing a steep
gradient, a long convoy of motor-lorries winding in
and out, now in view, now disappearing. In a little
while we catch it up. The gradient is very stiff, and
we seem almost to creep past the rumbling monsters.
The hillside is shaking as we go by. Ten — twenty of
them, all nicely spaced out; shall we never get rid of
them ? The dust thickens the further we advance up
the convoy, until we are in a dense cloud which gets
in the eyes and mouth and tastes hot and nasty. We
pass another ten of them, and still we are rolling up
the hill alongside — a small atom engulfed in a whirl
of dust and noise. Each driver as we pass turns a
whitey-brown face towards us. The dust is caked thick
on them all, encumbers their eyebrows, fills their ears,
and gives their eyes a wild, bloodshot, strained look.
Eight more lorries, their engines growling like monsters
held by the throat, their vast bulks quivering and
shaking as they thunder along. And then at last the
officer's motor car ahead, which shows, thank Heaven,
that we are at the head of the convoy at last. Thirty-
eight three-ton lorries, grinding and forcing their way
up a sun-baked mountain road, and stretching along
nearly a mile of it ! Away back to the time of the
Romans and long before that, this was a military road,
but it never had to carry anything heavier than a
wheeled cart. We brought thousands of motor lorries
to Macedonia and had to make our roads before we
could use them. And day in, day out, these convoys
roll along, friezes of them against the skyline or the
hillside, and from miles away one can hear the deep-
toned sullen roar of their passage, like a rumble of
distant thunder.
Down into the deep dip before Likovan, and then
through Lahana, with its little crowd of Tommies
114
TWO BALKAN DAYS— JANUARY AND JULY
round the E.F.C. and up and over the highest point of
the Seres road, at an altitude of over 2,000 feet. Here
we meet a convoy rumbling up, charge into a cloud
of dust, but, curving in and out, are soon past it. And
in a little while we are on the last stretch of the hill
road before it dips down into the Struma Valley. As
we turn here and there we catch glimpses of a wonderful
panorama, and in another moment the whole prospect
is open to us ; the wonderful wide sweep of the Struma
Valley with the sun of early evening shining full on
the great ranges of mountains held by the Bulgars;
the river winding up to the gateway of the Rupel Pass,
marvellously distinct in detail; Lake Tahinos to the
East, and Seres shining white and clear twenty miles
away. It is difficult to think that such a fair valley
can have such an evil reputation, but such is the danger
in the hot season of malaria that now, having learnt
by experience, all our troops except a few advanced
posts on the river line are withdrawn to the hills. The
men left on the plain, who must have suffered there in
this day of baking, steaming heat, are protected by
face masks and gauntlets, so that they look like some
mediaeval survival; and at night have to smear their
hands and faces with thick, dark ointment. It is but
a detail of our discomforts in our Watch on the Struma.
Think of wearing face nets and gauntlets on such a day
as this !
And now we begin to drop. In five miles or so we
go down some 1,800 feet. The car whizzes and turns,
doubles on itself, hums round extraordinary corners,
plunges down giddy descents. At times the sensation
is more of flying than motoring. We flash past labour-
ing mule transport and lorries stolidly but steadily
ascending. The road is busy here. And in less than
no time we are at Kilo 70, the great Depot and junction
115
SALONICA AND AFTER
for the Struma front. Here we are amid dumps and
dust, camps of all descriptions, and Decauville rail-
ways. The fiercer heat of the day has gone, but the
air is close and stifling. In ten minutes I am dipping
my head into a bucket of cold water, swilling away the
accumulated dust, and wondering if an hour or so ago
I really was sitting in the tepid wavelets of Beshik
Lake wearing a sun helmet. It seems rather an episode
that belongs to the far-away days of youth.
Three days later D.A.D.O.S. was riding his horse
along the road when he incontinently fell off it. "Sand-
fly" had claimed him, and he was picked up with a
temperature of over 104 and hurried off to a Field
Ambulance. It is just a little way Macedonia has — to
trip you up just when you are feeling you are proof
against anything her climate can do.
116
CHAPTER X.
The Balkan Stage.
** The roses rahnd the door
Make me love mother more. ,
Whenagetback,
Whenagetback
To ma home in Tennessee.'*
It was the first tame I had ever really caught the
astounding words of "Way down in Tennessee." They
were being sung with great earnestness by a young,
pleasant-faced Cockney sailor who stood near the
breech of a 9.2 gun on a tiny improvised stage. There
was bunting all around him and somewhere behind
was concealed the orchestra — an accordeon. The occa-
sion was the second birthday of one of our smaller and
more exotic ships of war.
"I think," whispered the Commander, as the won-
derful song was finished, "that we'll go aft when the
interval comes, and leave the rest of the concert to
them." And a little later a group of us sat in deck
chairs, energetically grasping whiskies and sodas, and
looking over to the few twinkling lights of Salonica.
The sounds of the concert came more faintly to our
ears.
The subject of this chapter is a pleasant one ; a story,
perhaps inadequately told, of triumph over circum-
stances. That unostentatious little ship's concert was
only a very insignificant item in many scores of enter-
tainments I saw in and around Macedonia, and only
117
SALONICA AND AFTER
in casting the mind back is it possible to realise how
much the men of the B.S.F. did for themselves in re-
lieving the intolerable tedium that comes of a long
campaign in a wild, comfortless country.
The story of the B.S.F. theatrical enterprises really
begins with the pantomime "Dick Whittington," which
opened with great success on Christmas Eve of 1915,
somewhere up the Lembet road. ''Dick Whittington"
made history and largely set the standard for all future
developments. The "book" was exceptionally clever
from start to finish and was solemnly reviewed, if you
please, in the Times. The show was given in two mar-
quees placed T-wise, and what was intended merely to
amuse the members of a Field Ambulance and any-
body who might come along, was annexed by a wise
General for the Division.
The following winter the members of the same Field
Ambulance, the 85th, produced "Aladdin," this time
as a Divisional enterprise at Kopriva, on the Struma,
and in the winter of 1917-18 they (together with the
84th Field Ambulance) followed this up with "Blue-
beard." All were great successes and it is a curious
fact that throughout the campaign the Field Ambulan-
ces were very prolific in providing the best talent.
* At first, this great movement to provide amusement
for the troops spread rather slowly. In the early days
it was regarded rather as a luxury. Later it was seen
in its true light — as a necessity. Every tap of the car-
penter's hammer and every electric bulb "scrounged"
for the stage was really a tiny part of the necessary
machinery for the continuance of a long and exhausting
war. But it took time for this to be thoroughly under-
stood, and in the beginning O.C.'s of units or concert
parties had to proceed warily. Salonica, in some strange
fashion, had become synonymous with the idea of a
118
THE BALKAN STAGE
field of war where very little that was warlike was
done. It would not do to confirm this erroneous im-
pression by letting it be thought that the B.S.F. had
theatres of its own to add to its other delights ! So,
like the worship of the early Christians, the early de-
velopment of our theatres proceeded slowly and
quietly. But gradually the movement increased until
very few units of any importance had not made some
sort of attempt to amuse themselves, and one found
concert parties and theatres all over the country. By
the time most of our men had been out in Macedonia
for two years or more the fact that, when they were
not working or fighting, they were trying to make
themselves happy was accepted as a normal and sensi-
ble thing, in spite of what people at home might or
might not think. And then came a further phase. The
authorities, knowing well the difficulties that confron-
ted them in trying to give leave, determined that if
submarines and the difficulties of transport and the
various other factors that operated were to keep most
of our men out in Macedonia for a further indefinite
period, they must be amused and interested as much
as possible. At the end of 1917 and the beginning of
1918, indeed, it became very clear that the Salonica
Army would have to fend for itself in every way. With
Russia off his hands, there was every possibility that
the Spring of 1918 would see the enemy engaging in a
big offensive in Macedonia in order to try and complete
the tale of his conquests on the Eastern fronts. But
there were no reinforcements to be expected from home,
or from any other front. The Salonica front was, in
fact, cut off from the rest of the world ; or at any rate,
our only link was the perilous one of the Mediterranean,
which the Navy held in the teeth of enemy submarines
and lack of Allied Naval co-ordination. It was a case
119
SALONICA AND AFTER
of God helps those who help themselves. The B.S.F.
combed itself out and made the most of its available
supply of fighting material. Then knowing that at any
time the men might be called upon to wage a very un-
equal fight to maintain their footing in Greece, it deter-
mined to keep them in the best spirits possible. They
could not go to Blighty ; therefore Blighty, as far as it
could be done, should be brought to them. The authori-
ties themselves encouraged sane and healthy amuse-
ment in every possible way. We had prepared for the
worst, and now the only thing to do was to make the
best of it. Under the direct stimulus of official help
the B.S.F. saw a great efflorescence of theatrical enter-
tainment. Macedonia might soon be burning. We
would do our fiddling before and not during the event.
So that we had the rather extraordinary coincidence
that the finals of the great B.S.F. Boxing Champion-
ships were being fought off, before a great and most
appreciative crowd, on t-he very days in March, 1918,
when the Germans first attacked in such overwhelming
strength on the Somme. One can write of these things
now that the B.S.F. has so signally played its part
in achieving complete and final victory. Before it
would not have been so easy.
In France everything that went to the making of an
entertainment was fairly easy to hand. In Macedonia
practically everything had to be improvised. No wan-
dering parties of London *'stars" ever went out there,
but officers and men found their own talent, and plenty
of it. Quite often it was of a professional kind. After
all, once you mobilise a whole nation you are bound
to find the most diversified talent scattered throughout
the Armies. A hospital orderly reveals himself to be,
in private life, a scene painter of merit. A mule driver
proves to be a member of a well-known Folly troupe.
120
THE BALKAN STAGE
Lieut. Wunpip of the Rumpshires had a mottled cao-eer
up and down the American Continent, and danced two
years for his living in New York music-halls. A gay
young pilot of the E.A.F. proves t-o have specialised at
Cambridge in female parts with an authentic Cockney
accent. All sorts of odd people who seemed to be
merely homy-handed reveal themselves as capable,
even soulful musicians. Aladdin could not have done
better. The O.C. Concert Party clapped his hands and
the right man, more or less, apj>eared. The question of
costumes presented the greatest difficulties, and many
have been the journeys down to Salonica to find things
that very often Salonica did not possess. The fire
brought on a crisis in this respect. Fortunately, in the
case of Divisional shows, at any rate, the question of
costumes and other "props" was thought out months
in advance, and officers going home on leave were
pressed into the service of finding all that was necessary
for the forthcoming pantomime and bringing them
back.
And then the girls of our B.S.F. shows ! Really,
one hardly knows how to begin to talk about them.
I am sure that in all the theatres of war (whichever
way you like to employ the word) the B.S.F. girls were
far and away the best. They developed to a pitch of
daintiness and perfection which it is quite impossible
to indicate to those unfortunate persons who never sat
in a Macedonian theatre. Necessity is the mother, etc.
We had no ladies and so had to make them. And it
was quite impossible, while the show was in progress,
to realise that these delicate young creatures were
young men who drove heavy motor lorries or threw
bombs at the Bulgar. It all seems to show that
English beauty is essentially masculine. Take a likely
looking young man and dress him up suitably and he
121
SALONICA AND AFTER
makes quite a pretty girl. But then, only the ghosts
of the burnt-out shops of Venizelos Street could tell
to what lengths the indefatigable O.C. Concert Parties
went in order to obtain verisimilitude. It was an
article of faith that to feel and act like a girl on the
stage the player must copy the original down to the
smallest details of lingerie. No cotton stockings, for
instance, masquerading as the real thing. They had
to be silk — if silk could possibly be found. And it made
all the difference on the stage. Each big production
had its leaven of mediocre female impersonators who
were not expected to do more than look pretty in the
chorus. But each production also had something stlart-
ling to show. The qualities included striking beauty,
good dancing, good singing, and — particularly in one
case — amazing joie de vivre and diablerie and sprightli-
ness of the soubrette type. The real females who sang
in the Salonica music-halls were wooden compared to
some of our imitations.
To realise how much the concert parties and the
musicians meant to the Army in Macedonia, it is only
necessary to try and imagine what life would have been
like without them. To many thousands of men they
were the one link with the gaieties and the compara-
tively care-free existence they knew before the war.
Tommy was grateful to the men who had sufficient
talent to provide these distractions for him, and for his
part would willingly have seen them doing nothing else.
In some cases this was so. Eight shows a week and
rehearsals at a Divisional pantomime left no time for
other work. But many others worked hard at the
theatres only in the intervals of their military duties.
Certain leading troupes attained the dignity of touring
companies, and of course there was no question of their
doing anything else while on tour. Great occasions
122
THE BALKAN STAGE
were these when a concert party visited the camp. The
Home O.C. would have guests for dinner and a special
spread. Everybody would ride in from miles around,
and there would be the greatest joy and hilarity until
the time came for the Home O.C. to make a speech of
thanks to the O.C. Concert Party and his merry men.
Then a dreadful silence would descend on the hall of
mirth. Audience and company alike looked and felt
dreadfully embarrassed. In our honest British way we
cannot do these graceful little things without looking
as though we have been collectively condemned to
death. Relief and joy would come again when the
O.C. had delivered himself of his few words : " And
I am sure (pause) that all of us — er (pause) officers and
men alike are most grateful. . . In fact, a damned good
show. . ." And then everybody would sing lustily
"God Save the King." Nobody stumbled over that.
The most brilliant theatrical season of all was the
winter of 1917-1^. The Divisions, by dint of long pre-
paration, surpassed themselves. The 26th Division
produced its splendid pantomime "Robinson Crusoe"
at the Divisional Theatre, Gugunci, and I think that,
taking it all round, and weighing up every detail, it
was the best variety show I saw produced in Mace-
donia. At Kopriva on the Struma, the 28th Division
produced its gorgeous production, "Bluebeard," a posi-
tive delight to the eye, with beautiful costumes and an
orchestra (mainly chosen from the 2 / 5th Durham Light
Infantry and the 23rd Battalion Welsh Regiment),
which entranced everybody and rivalled anything one
might have heard in London. The Kopriva theatre
was a huge old barn which, with a stage built' on to it,
served its purpose admirably. Further down the Struma
valley the 27th Division produced "Dick Whittington."
This Division suffered from having no permanent
128
SALONICA AND AFTER
theatre. It was scattered over a long and difficult line,
and was not lucky in finding anything so good as the
Kopriva barn. But all difficulties were overcome and
the show was given in the villages of Dimitric and
Badimal and at Stavros. All the Divisional theatres
had excellently appointed bars and supper rooms at-
tached, and I remember, as I bought a two-shilling
Corona at the bar at Badimal, thinking how curious it
was that Nigrita, a little further down the valley, was
the scene in 1912. of a notorious massacre by the Bul-
garians. All the Divisional theatres had the added spice
that they were well within enemy artillery range — ^they
were, in fact, the most advanced of any war theatres —
and the programme contained instructions as to scat-
tering tactics in case of bombardment. But the Bulgar
hardly ever tried to shoot at them, and tliis was one
of the things put down to his credit.
I did a tour of the whole three pantomimes, and a
most amusing and pleasant experience it was; this
combination of occasional artillery "strafes," a bomb-
ing raid (quite in the London style), and then the
evening's light music and gaiety — and during it all,
the patrols far out in the darkness of the valley or
crawling up and down the rugged ravines of Doiran.
The war was always there. There was much inter-
Divisional rivalry, but each production was one of
which its organisers had every reason to be proud. The
22nd Division that year did not produce a pantomime,
but relied on their excellent variety troupe, ''The
Macedons." But later in 1918, they produced "The
Chocolate Soldier" — a wonderful effort, which every-
body agreed was the best musical show of all.*
* In March, 1919, " The Chocolate Soldier " was produced at the
Petit Champs Theatre, Constantinople, and very much impressed the
local inhabitants. The 28th Division also produced its pantomime,
124
THE BALKAN STAGE
Then there was the 16th Corps Dramatic Society.
Here we are on different ground. I should think it
must have been one of the very best amateur dramatic
companies ever put together. I spent three or four
years in close touch with the London theatres, but I
never enjoyed a farce more than Sydney Grundy's ''The
Arabian Nights," as produced by this Company. There
was some amazingly finished acting, and the three or
four women's parts were a source of strength, and not
weakness. The company was in charge of a Lieut.-
Colonel who had had much experience of this sort of
work in India, and had the whole business as much at
his finger ends as his other business of machine-gunning.
One would like to give names, but once having begun,
one would hardly know where to stop, and there were
very many who deserved the gratitude of their
comrades.
During this same winter there were innimaerable
other shows elsewhere ; with battalions and brigades,
at the Base, at hospitals, and with M.T. Companies all
over the country. One cannot name them all, and I
have concentrated on the Divisional shows because they
were produced practically in the front line and with all
the difficulties and disadvantages of being near no
settled habitations. Night after night these Divisional
shows were crowded with happy infantrymen who for-
got entirely, for the time being, that they had been
away from home for three years or more. It is sad
to think how many of those dear chaps went under in
the final and victorious offensive of September, 1918,
after "sticking it" for so long. At the front and every-
where else, the entertainments did an immense amount
*' The Babes in the Wood," there. At Tiflis the 27th Divisional
Pantomime Company awakened a keen desire among Georgian and
Armenian society to see more of English plays and performances.
125
SALONICA AND AFTER
of good. They were, in fact, one of the chief factors
which enabled our men to keep their sanity after the
long hardship, monotony, sickness, and hope-deferred
of the Balkan campaign. There is no need to apologise
for them. They were as necessary as mules or shells.
Nor must we forget the various Divisional Horse
Shows which were organised from time to time; won-
derful functions which amazed our Allied visitors, and
where British manhood and British horseflesh were
seen at their best. Perhaps the most brilliant of all
was the 27th Divisional Horse Show, which was held in
July, 1917. The site, just on the edge of the Struma
Plain, was magnificent, and "everybody" was there —
nurses from the Base hospitals, delighted with the novel
experience of a trip up-country, and General Sarrail
sitting next to the British Army Commander in the
grand stand. Aeroplanes circled overhead to keep off
inquisitive Bulgar or Boche, and the weather was won-
derful. It was astonishing to think that a Division
very much in the field could have organised such a
show. And the horses made everybody's eyes sparkle.
At a Horse Show held by the 22nd Division at Gugunci,
the enemy heavily shelled the road leading to the
ground. It was an anxious day, as he could easily have
plumped his long-range shells into the show ground
itself. But he confined himself to the people and teams
going and coming, and shortly after leaving the show
the winning team of Heavy Artillery horses was de-
stroyed— a sad end to a day of triumph.
And a final word on the B.S.F. Boxing Champion-
ships, which were fought off a few miles up the Lembet
Road during the late days of March, 1918. Terraces
had been constructed in a natural amphitheatre over-
looking a dry nullah. At the finals on the third day
over 16,000 men were present. Just as all was ready,
126
THE BALKAN STAGE
the new French commander-in-chief, General Guillau-
mat, descended the long flight of steps cut in the hard
ground. As he reached the ringside and advanced to
shake hands with General Milne the band suddenly
struck up the Marseillaise, and the whole 16,000 rose
from their seats with one great spontaneous movement,
and stood at the salute or rigidly at attention. It was
a magnificently impressive moment. And one won-
dered, as the boxing progressed, what the two Generals
were talking about, or at any rate thinking about, as
they sat there side by side. The news from France
on March 23rd, 1918, was very dark indeed. . . Would
it be our turn next ?
127
CHAPTER XI.
Ourselves and our Allies.
When the British first went to Salonica they had to
begin from the beginning. In Eastern Europe they
were the least known of all the great nations. German,
Austrian, French, Italian and Russian — all these were
known and more or less understood. But we, although
our influence stretched wider throughout the world
than any of the others, came to Salonica and the Bal-
kans as complete strangers. A few Greeks who had
been in Egypt had perhaps rubbed shoulders with us,
but that was all.
At first, the impression of us was not too favourable.
For one thing French influence and prestige over-
shadowed us. French influence was king, the language
almost universal and the local people — all of whom
pretend to wear their hearts on their sleeves, and most
of whom can change them at will — ^thought of us as
quite a secondary factor. The campaign was under a
French command and French propaganda, we must
remember, was a more virile and energetic growth than
ours. I remember that when in August, 1916, the
British captured the difficult position of Horseshoe Hill,
on the Doiran Front, a local newspaper, the Opinion,
published in French by a Greek of strong French
leanings, came out with the following : —
" The English troops who have just come into con-
tact with the Bulgars have given proof of remarkable
abnegation and bravery. In the combat which took place
128
Our Balkan Allies: Serbs at Mikra,
after landing from Corfu, 191 6.
«
— g^ _J
Evzones of the Venizelist Army
leaving for the Front, 19 17.
OURSELVES AND OUR ALLIES
in the position known as Horseshoe the British troops
attacked the Bulgars with the bayonet with admirable
dash, forcing tliem finally to give up the ground. Mili-
tary circles (les milieux militaires) are extremely satis-
fied with the conduct of the English, all the more so as
these troops enter into line for the first time."
It was no doubt fairly well-meant, but for once
British G.H.Q. was annoyed, and the Opinion had its
nose tweaked by French G.H.Q. It was rather exas-
perating that the dear old British Empire should be
cheerily patted on the back by a Salonica journal. But
then comparatively few people outside our own country
have ever heard of Hastings, Agincourt, Crecy, the
Armada, Blenheim, Malplaquet, Quebec, Badajos, Tra-
falgar, Waterloo, Inkerman, the Mutiny, Rorke's
Drift, and a few score more historical *' stunts " which
help to make up the story of Britain. And throughout
the war we were so busy impressing on everybody that
we were not a military nation that most of them finished
by believing we had never had a '' scrap " at all ; or at
any rate nothing more than an occasional brush with a
handful of niggers.
We had to start, then, from nothing, and it soon
became less than nothing, because at first sight we were
regarded as a brusque and unpolite people. The
British officer or soldier stolidly went his way on the
pavements and gave the impression of not caring a
hang for anybody. He had not the easy ways and
flourishes of some of our friends, and the first impres-
sion therefore was I3iat he had no manners. The
British officer, when he enters a cafe, does not usually
salute the assembled company as most of our Allies
do. It is a pleasant custom and is worth copying, but
happens not to be in our scheme of conduct. The
sole reason is that the average Briton is timid and a
120 K
SALONICA AND AFTER
little self-conscious, and hates, as he hates the Devil,
drawing attention to himself in public. This point
was, and largely remains, utterly misunderstood, and
is the basis of most errors on our account. The average
British officer would rather die than wear three or four
medals dangling on his breast. The average French
officer likes to do it^, and is proud of the effect they
cause in public. Neither is right and neither is wrong.
It is simply the fundamental temperamental difference
between two peoples. But it is stl-iking, all the same,
how sooner or later British masculine codes end by
imposing themselves on other nations, providing they
can be studied long enough. In this simple little detail
of medals, it was very noticeable that towards the end
of the Salonica campaign fewer and fewer Allied officers
wore their medals, and contented themselves with
ribbons. If there is a real standard of right and wrong
in these matters, then there is good ground for think-
ing that the British are always nearer to it than any-
body else. Just as there are people, who, by some
superior endowment, may lay down the law as to
whether a work of art is good or bad, so there is a
people which has the gift of setting the masculine
standard.
On the other hand, the French are extraordinarily
simple and unostentatious in ways one would least
expect. A French general, for instance, is often a
much less impressive figure than a French sous-
lieutenant. A tiny star on the cuff of his jacket (or
two or three, according to his rank) is often the only
sign of distinction a French commander of a division
or army will carry. For the rest he is often dressed
in simple, unadorned horizon blue or khaki with the
plainest of kSpis, And I have seen a French general of
Division sitting at a table in front of Floca's taking
130
OURSELVES AND OUR ALLIES
his aperitif like any other man, and chatting away
vivaciously with a lieutenant. A British general could
no more do that, without losing something, than he
could buy bananas from a barrow in the street. All
French generals I happen to have talked to are the
same ; simple, easy and, on ordinary occasions at any
rate, making almost a cult of being unadorned. Of
course, on " holidays and fete days " a French general
can be one of the most gorgeous and impressive of in-
dividuals.
The British rapidly gained ground in everybody's
esteem in Salonica. '^Ah, les Anglais \^^ I became
tired of people of various nationalities who told me
how much they loved the British; what a revelation
we had been to them; how straight, honest and un-
affected we were, and how wonderfully competent in
doing things. " We misunderstood you at first it is
true. We did not know your ways. We thought you
had very little politeness. . . . But now ! Ah, les
Anglais !" The idea flourished until there came a time
when our prestige was almost overpowering. We had
to play second fiddle all through the Balkan campaign,
and the Great People at home never helped us a scrap,
because through a thousand ill-inspired megaphones
the world was told that Britain, after all, was only
playing a mediocre part in the war. What we achieved
in the Balkans we had to do "on our own," but the
result was that British stock rose highest in the local
Allied market. One smiled when people talked about
the British tl*oops being taken away from Salonica to
some other field of war. We were an Allied Army of
five nations, and such a state of things must always be
a difficult compromise. There were many racial anti-
pathies and prejudices, and it is absurd to pretend —
now that the enemy has been beaten — that there were
131
SALONICA AND AFTER
not. These sometimes showed themselves sufficiently
on the surface to have caused much pleasure to th«
Bulgar had he known. The British forces were, to a
large extent, the link which bound the whole Allied
Army together; our example and prestige, all the
stronger perhaps for not being too much insisted on,
was a factor always working for harmony. One cannot
better express it than by saying that we were the
Armee de Liaison. This is a point which ought to be
thoroughly understood at home. On this ground alone,
the British Divisions in Macedonia more than justified
themselves. They were not only a fighting, but a
political army, and it would at any time have been
the height of unwisdom to take them away — even if
their numbers had been replaced by troops of some
other country.
This high regard for the British sometimes became
a little embarrassing. It was occasionally so fervently
expressed that it was likely to cause irritation else-
where, and this was the last thing anybody desired.
M, Repoules, for instance, a former Greek Minister of
Finance, wrote an appreciation of the presence and
work of the various Allies in the Balkans in which it
was impossible not to see that he had " plumped " for
the British. He was quite nice about the others, but
lyrical about us. A long extract from the article was
translated for The Balkan News, and it is typical of
our men that, immediately, a number of skits came in
making gentle fun of the eminent Greek's praises of
"our blue-eyed boys." One felt glad of this. It is
a dreadful thing when a nation comes calmly to accept
unlimited praise as being its rightful due. And there
is one tribute from M. Venizelos which was not made
public, but which I know to be absolutely authentic.
" The British people," he said tb an acquaintance of
132
OURSELVES AND OUR ALLIES
mine, "is in its civilisation two hundred years in
advance of any other nation in Europe." Well, well,
perhaps in sanitary matters we are.
In the early days the Allies were chiefly represented
by the French, the Serbs and ourselves. The Greeks
were still Constantine's, and the Italians and Russians
had not arrived. The French and the British were
already fairly well known to each other. But the Ser-
bians were new to us, and we were new to them, and
it was not long before a mutual admiration sprang up.
We admired them for their supreme soldierly qualities,
felt sympathy for their sufferings, and generally had a
big-brotherly affection for the little nation which had
been so tried. They on their part discovered us as a
revelation. Their horizon, before the war, had been
bounded by Austria and Germany, and those who had
ventured further afield had gone to Paris for their cul-
ture, and found much good by so doing. But England
they did not know, and in us they apparently found
all that they had been longing for. In a thousand in-
formal gatherings it became plain that the Serbs had
taken us to their hearts and they were never tired of
saying so. And how many of our own people did one
hear saying, " By Gad, I admire the Serbs. They
have put up a fight." It was impvossible not to be
impressed by the long-limbed, spare, well-set-up
soldiers of the Serbian Army. And we never forgot
that they were an Army which had been saved from
the very jaws of destruction. In us, the Serbs pro-
fessed to find striking qualities of efficiency in adminis-
tration, honesty, generosity, bravery, chic — quite a
catalogue of good things. The entente was complete,
and Serb and Briton were delighted with the mutual
discovery.
It was most impressive when the Serbs began to go
133
m
SALONICA AND AFTER
up the line again. Reconstituted at Corfu after being
rescued from the horrors of the Albanian retreat —
many, alas ! died after coming into Allied hands — they
completed their new training and re-grouping at the
camps at Mikra, near Salonica, and in the summer of
1916 began to move upncountry again to meet and
check the Bulgarian advance that was threatening. I
first saw them moving up on a hot July evening. I was
going to dinner at an Indian Medical Camp and they
filled the road for a mile or more. They had already
marched some eight or ten miles, and looked very hot
in their new French blue uniforms with blue steel hel-
mets, and the dust was rising from their feet like
steam. But they were fine upstanding fellows, lean
and hard, and everyone of them was browned to a rich
mahogany. When I came back three hours later, they
were still on the road, marching stolidly, silently, with
an utter absence of pomp or ceremony, every one of
them looking simply what he was — a fighting man
going out again to fight. They had no illusions about
that. For several days they were moving up, infantry,
artillery and transport ; 120,000 of them, all that was
left of the 650,000 men Serbia had mobilized ; men of
the Vardar, Danube, Timok, Morava, Drin and Schu-
madia Divisions. (The Serbs name their Divisions
after the rivers of the country.) A few mornings after
this, I was awakened at about five o'clock by the sound
of a band playing selections from " Toreador " and
there the blue line was still filing past ; regiment after
regiment of them, their nut-brown faces shining in the
early morning sunlight. Poor Serbs ! The Great War
gave little respite to them, and of the 120,000 many
were soon to fall. When the final 1918 offensive came
they were able to muster with all ranks, all services,
and with 10,000 Yugo-Slavs included, only 80,000 men.
134
OtJftSELVES AND OUR ALLtfeg
At about this time I attended a number of Serbian
ceremonies. There was the Slava, or feast day, of a
crack cavalry regiment for instance, out in the hills
just behind Sedes. It was a grilling hot day, and
everybody had to stand bareheaded at the religious
ceremony — a simple matter for a Serb, but an ordeal
for us. As we entered the sort of stockade in which
the regiment was, the Colonel at the gate kissed each
one of us on both cheeks. I met him in the street next
day, and he did not recognise me. It is rather curious to
be kissed by a man one day, and to be a stranger to him
on the next. He was, in a rather gipsy way, a very
handsome man, and was generally understood to have
been one of the leaders in the assassination of King
Alexander and Queen Draga; that dynastic tragedy
which — worked up and boomed by the Austrian Press
— did Serbia so much harm in the eyes of other nations.
After the religious ceremony we sat down to a tre-
mendous lunch which lasted for hours. We were sitting
under a long open thatched shelter, and the scene might
have been laid in Central Africa. General Moschopo-
lous, who was the head of the Greek command in
Salonica at that time, was present, and a certain Ser-
bian captain who always loved to make speeches
addressed himself directly to the Greek General, and
in vibrant tones assured him of the glorious part Greece
was shortly to play. As Constantine's attitude at that
time was becoming more and more dubious. General
Moschopolous looked very uncomfortable. After the
interminable lunch we danced the kola, which has been
described as the only ceremonial dance which can be
performed in long grass on a steep hillside wearing top
boots and spurs. You link hands in a long line and, to
the sound of the Serbian pipes, the line advances and
retreats, and at the same time each individual dancer
185
SALONICA AND AFTER
performs evolutions of his own. Some of them indulged
in extraordinary feats of agility. I found it more than
hot enough merely to hold hands and move backwards
and forwards.
This particular Slava was held in celebration of
Kossovo Day. It has been remarked by most obser-
vers of the Serbs how much they live in the past, how
tenacious they are of nationality, and how remarkable
it is that in celebrating the battle of Kossovo they
should do honour not to a victory, but to the greatest
defeat in their history — the crushing defeat of 1389,
when the Serbian nation went down before the power
of tihe Turk. In a certain official publication, a writer
has hit off excellently this characteristic of the Serbs.
*' No other nation," he says, " not even the Irish, lives
so continuously and intimately with its past as the
Serbian. To the Serbian peasant, the battle of
Kossovo, fought a generation before Agincourt, is in-
finitely nearer and more real than the South African
war to the ordinary British workman. The inclusion
of such and such a place in the Great Dushan's Empire
is a reason for its ' restoration ' to Serbia almost too
obvious tb require argument. It is essential to keep
this in mind if one wishes to understand Serbian
policy or Serbian aspirations for national unity and
greatness."
Stephen Dushan was, of course, the greatest of all
Serbs of olden times and his empire at one time
stretched over nearly all the Balkans. That is one of
the main difficulties in dealing with the Balkan ques-
tions. Each of the Balkan races can invoke an era
when some fighting ancestor held sway over much of
the rest. Consequently the extreme nationalist in any
of these countries points to a patch of territory and
says, *' That is undoubtedly ours. In the — th century
186
OUKSELVES AND OUR ALLIES
our great Emperor so-and-so ruled the whole of it."
Such an argument is regarded as final. With the Serbs,
their history is kept amazingly alive by the many
poems and songs written round the national heroes
which are handed down from generation to generation
and recited or sung at all feasts. They charge in battle
with the names of their mediaeval heroes on their lips.
It is this intense nationalism which spurred them on in
their long fight against adversity during the war, and
which finally enabled them to play a big part in recap-
turing their own country. The eulogy which Mr.
Balfour paid to them in his speech at the Lord Mayor's
banquet in 1918 was well deserved.
In January, 1918, I spent the Serbian Christmas with
the Headquarters of the Vardar Division on the Mog-
lena front. A massive lunch was followed at a very
short interval by a bigger dinner. We drank a great
deal of red wine, but happily it was all of the same
kind. An orchestra was stationed outside the door of
the long hut, and in relays the kola ^as danced for
hours on end. One could not help but admire these
men tremendously, with their courageous acceptance
of exile from their devastated country. They heard
from their families only at the rarest intervals, through
Switzerland. Most of them had been fighting for six
years. And yet there was no suggestion that they
would not go on fighting indefinitely until the victory
was won. One felt iiow much British moral support
really meant to these hardy fighters, and what their
deception and discouragement would have been had
our troops ever been taken away. The British and
Serbian armies never really fought side by side ; that
is, their respective fronts never touched, the French
always being betNveen. But we had a number of Motor
Transport Companies with the Serbian armies ; in fact,
137
SALONiCA AND AFTEK
W^ did practically all their mechanical traction, and
these hard-working British troops created a splendid
impression. The great victbry of the Serbs when, in
the autumn, they captured the 8,000 feet summit of
Kaijmacklan, would not have been possible without the
devoted work of some of our Ford unit's, which kept
supplies and ammunition going up a dreadful moun-
tain road which may fairly be described as a precipice.
Take him for all in all, the Serb is indeed a man.
I suppose that under his own conditions of Balkan
warfare you could not possibly find better fighting
material in the world, and we came to the conclusion
that all round he is easily the best soldier in the Bal-
kans. He is strong and hardy, courageous, great on
bayonet work, and is not too much shaken, as so many
otherwise courageous people are, by artillery. The
Serbs are, of course, almost entirely peasants, and
Serbia, being in normal times a great pig and chicken
country, they are always very well fed. The Greek
soldier can get along on much scantier rations than
the Serb.
How much Serbs are a peasant race I realised one
day up at Tresina, the Headquarters of the 2nd Serbian
Army. As I was walking through the village with
some Serbian officers one of them pointed to a thick-
set old soldier who was standing some little distance
from us, his hands folded behind him, in an attitude
of deep contemplation. " Do you know who that is ? "
said the officer. Naturally I replied that I was not
acquainted with many Serbian soldiers. The officer
laughed.
'' That is Voivode (Marshal) Stepan Stepanovitch,"
he said. " He always dresses like a simple soldier."
I expressed a desire to meet him, but was gently
dissuaded. The Voivode, it appeared, only spoke Ser-
138
OURSELVES AND OUR ALLIeS
bian, was something of a recluse, loved to walk by
himself in contemplation, and was not given to con-
versation with anybody. He was the son of a peasant,
and did not bother to look like anything else. Marshal
Misitch, the Commander of the 1st Army, was a leader
of another type, and you felt when near him that you
were in the presence of a great soldier. He is quite
an unassuming man — but he threw the Austrian army
twice out of his country, and if Serbia's enemies had
been limited to the Dual Monarchy there would have
been no question of an Albanian retreat. General
Vasitch, Commander of the Third Army, was another
very interesting personality who made astonishing pro-
gress in his study of English.
The Italians we always found very sympathetic in
spite of the difficulties of language. There is a uni-
formity about them which appeals to the English mind.
One Italian officer is very much like another, and the
same can be said of the men. They had other points
in common with us, being extremely neat and orderly
and great builders of roads. Their famous road to
Santi Quaranta vied with the Seres Road in construc-
tion, although it did not have to bear anything like
so much traffic. The Italians, when they first came,
had the distinction of being under the command of
perhaps the tallest and biggest soldier in the Balkans
— General Petitti di Roreto. He stands six feet four
or so, and is of very big build. I remember the sensa-
tion when he came walking up the Place de la Liberte
when the Italians first landed. The rolling hand-clap-
ping which had been proceeding as the ItaUans
passed, swelled into a veritable tornado as their im-
mense General appeared. The lot of the Italians in
the campaign was similar to that of the rest — long
periods of inaction, save for hard digging, varied by
189
SALONICA AND AFTER
spells of fierce fighting against impregnable positions.
The Greeks, of course, began their relations with us
under a great handicap. Although Venizelos had in-
vited us to Salonica, the Greeks we found at Salonica
were largely hostile. Things went from bad to worse,
and the name of Greece was at zero when Venizelos
came to Salonica. He it was who lifted Greece to her
feet again in the eyes of the Free Nations, and the
bravery of the Army later on did a good deal more.
But we will deal at greater length with this point in
a later chapter.
Three years fairly close acquaintance with the Bal-
kans and its muddle of problems and races have en-
abled me to make up my mind on one point only — and
that is, that it is unwise for European outsiders to
take to their bosoms any one Balkan country in par-
ticular. The Serbs have behaved magnificently in the
war, and all their friends hoj>e they will have their full
reward. But it would be a great mistake on our part
to make a pet of the Serbs because of this. What we
of the outside nations want is the detached point of
view; only in this way will it be possible to see the
eternal Balkan problem in its proper perspective, and
enable some measure of equity to be meted out to the
various Balkan peoples. The great trouble is that the
British Balkan " expert " is nearly always violently
prejudiced in favour of one particular country. Mr.
This dreams of nothing but Greece ; the Brothers That
beat the big drum of Bulgaria. (We saw during the
war what sort of mischief this sort of thing can cause.)
It should be our mission to try and hold the balance,
and to correct, as far as possible, distorted local views.*
* But all the same one must protest against a letter which I saw
published in a London newspaper of November, 1918, which bade
us, MOW that w« had knocked him out of th« war, to hasten to love
140
OURSELVES AND OUR ALLIES
Only an hour before writing this, I was talking to a
Greek, a bank manager and a very pleasant man. But,
politics cropping up, he led me before a map on his
office wall, and with terrific heat explained what
Greece, in bare justice, must have. There was no
stopping him. *' If they all went on like you at the
Peace Conference," I said, '* there would be another
war at once." This irritated him. "It is your role,"
he said, " to explain to the world what Greece should
have." " Devil a bit," I replied, in polite French. To
repeat, I am convinced that the moment a man takes
one Balkan nation specially under his wing, his opinion
on Balkan questions becomes for ever useless.
the Bulgar. " Our men tell us," the letter said, ** that the Bulgar
was a plucky fellow and a clean fighter. It will be our own fault
if we fail in getting into touch with him. It behoves us to make a
good impression, and much depends on our first appointments."
Whatever the last phrase may mean, this is damnable. The letter
went on to talk of the good treatment of our prisoners in Bulgaria.
Unfortunately first impressions of some observers as telegraphed
from that country gave a very erroneous idea of how the Bulgar
had behaved. He treated our men most horribly and he treated the
poor Serbs five times worse. They wallowed in filth, neglect and
brutality. The fact is that there is a strain of very real savagery
running throughout the Balkans and the Bulgar has an extra dose
of it. At a Peace Conference he will demand everything in the
name of civilization. Confronted with his atrocious treatment of
prisoners of war, he will say, " Well, after all, you know, our own
soldiers are treated much like that at any time." The Turk does
exactly the same; parades his veneer when in contact with civilized
people, and winks at any atrocity that may be going on in the
interior. They both try to get the best of both worlds. It is true
that our soldiers of the B.S.F., with their usual " sportsmanship " —
that baffling quality which no other country quite understands —
made the very best of "Johnny Bulgar" in every way, and were
always ready to hail any good point they found in him as opponent,
whether of courage or anything else. But our men who came troop-
ing down after the armistice from the Bulgarian prisoner of war
camps were very much cured of any pleasant feeling they might have
had that the Bulgars, on the whole, were good fellows. They at
least would not rush " to make a good impression " — unless it were
with a Mills grenade. Do not let us, for goodness sake, have any
illusions about people who love to hang villagers in batches, and then
take photographs of them. The Bulgar loved this sort of thing.
If he is to be accepted as a savage — all right. But in that case don't
let us have him masquerading in a frock coat,
141
SALONICA AND AFTER
Nor must we make the mistake of thinking that on
the few years of modern civilization which the various
Balkan nations have behind them, too great an edifice
can immediately be erected. It will need patience and
education and a few more years of the enjoyment of
real freedom before they can do much. Each Balkan
nation has its virtues, and its faults. Each nation has
its statesmen — but none has any great quantity. We
may draw a parable from our own hard experience in
Macedonia. When the Seres Road was first taken in
hand to permit of heavy traffic being run on it we
laid down a surface which at first sight looked quite
good and solid. But the rains came, and in less than
no time our pleasant surface of good road was pushed
down into the bottomless mud of Macedonia. We had
to take the road severely in hand again, put in a solid
foundation, build it up gradually and keep on building
it up all tihe time — and to make it equal to its task
it needed hard, conscientious and unremitting labour.
Something of the same kind must be done to introduce
into the Balkans a civilization which is likely to endure.
Anything that is scamped will sink down into the mud
again. There are many attractive qualities among the
Balkan nations. What they lack most of all is
character, and it cannot be built up in a few years.
This brings me back to my favourite among the
Allies — the British. I am not ashamed to say that
most, though not all, of what I have seen in the war
has confirmed me in ancient prejudices. I have been
throughout the war an ardent singer of our own praises.
There has been need of it, because so few other people
have done it. The other nations have taken us at our
own valuation, and I am convinced that during long
periods this was a source of miliilary weakness, because
other nations thought, naturally, that we were doing
142
OURSELVES AND OUR ALLIES
rather less than we said we were doing, and concluded,
therefore, that it must be mighty httle. I am con-
vinced that we are the finest thing turned out since the
Romans, and that our administration everywhere we
go shows it. (It sounds a little Hunnish this, but I am
not sure that a two-per-cent. dash of Hun spirit
wouldn't sometimes be a good thing for us — particu-
larly in dealing with the Huns.) But we will talk a
little more about ourselves in the next chapter.
148
CHAPTER XII.
The Army from Without.
The exemplary conduct of the British soldier was the
chief theme in the comment of most observers of us
when in the Balkans. I don't for a moment pretend
that we had not '* bad hat's " amongst us. Most com-
manding officers could enlighten one on that point.
But there was something about the general conduct and
attitude of our men which inspired confidence wherever
tliey went. If Tommy were about, then the people
whom he was near felt that everything was all right.
What did M. Repyoules say? — ''The British are prac-
tically worshipped throughout the whole of Macedonia.
.... What is the power behind the goodness of
character ? And how is it gained ? By nature ? No !
By bearing, education and will. Their intentions are
always straight, their thoughts innocent, and they
never misuse their power. . . . Not even the most ill-
educated Englishman, even when intoxicated, molests
anyone, hurts anyone, hurts an animal, touches a fruit
tree, or displays any vicious tendency. Heredity has
not left in the British character a trace of brutality or
barbarism."
I think it is mostly true, and the heart of the whole
tribute is, " They never misuse their power." It never
occurs to the British soldier that because he is in uni-
form, occupying somebody else's country, he has a
right to do things which he would not dare to do in
his own. He is just as good-humoured to the Balkan
144
THE ARMY FROM WITHOUT
peasant woman as be would be to one of the *' lydie* "
who sell flowers on the fountain in Piccadilly Circus.
He doesn't think that because he, a foreign soldier,
sees a Balkan chicken he has a mandate to " pinch "
it. It simply doesn't occur to him to play the con-
quering warrior game. He has a phrase of his own
which shows this. He speaks of himself as " the brutal
and licentious soldiery," and we all know that once
Tommy has made a joke of a thing he has absolutely
robbed it of its sting. The same British Colonel whom
I have already once quoted (and who, by the way, was a
markedly cynical, man-of-the-world type) told me that
in several years experience with his Division he had not
known a single case of assault on women, and had any
such occurred the case must have come through his
hands. And yet we employed a great deal of female
labour in road-making, with men of ours constantly in
charge of them. " Of course. ..." the Colonel added
with a twinkle. He would, being the cynic he is. But
his testimony remains, and is all the more valuable as
coming from one who was in no way swayed by senti-
mentality, and who had shed all his illusions long
before he came to Macedonia. Tommy was a great
civilising force in Macedonia. Even the most mulish
of the peasants — and they can be very mulish — began
to realise that something new was abroad : that soldiers
could be up and down the roads and on the side tracks
everywhere and that nobody's head was broken, no
woman was carried off, and no chickens or eggs were
looted. In many places far off the beaten tracks the
peasants were encouraged to bring their produce from
miles round and hold a market. Here Tommy bar-
gained— " Hey, Johnny, how much them eggs. . . .
Eggs, uffs. Idey, how much?" It was not long, of
cours«, before the Balkan peasant having lost all fear
145 V
SALONICA AND AFTER
of our soldiers began to exploit them. The primitive
mind rebounds quickly from fear to profit. . . . How
long the t^races of civilization we left will remain, or
whether or not they will be the real beginning of a
permanently better order of affairs in Macedonia, de-
pends on many things.
The writer occupied during the best part of three
yeaj-s the rather singular position of being of an Army
and yet not in it, and so while knowing something of its
inside workings, can yet look on it from an outside
point of view. And my final impression of the British
Army is one of great efficiency, even though in many
instances we spent more money to do a thing than w^e
need have done, and in others had more men— or offi-
cers— tb do a job than we need have had. But there
is no doubt about it that the Army gets things done,
once it thinks of doing them. We heard, during the
wax, a great deal about the circumlocution of the Army,
and how a request or an order or a suggestion travels
round and round from office to office until it dies of
giddiness. No doubt there is a great deal of that, but
though *' the system " may have its faults, I think it
gets there in the end. I used to be fascinated by the
way in which, if I asked for a thing, it travelled round
its appointed circle inevitably as fate and came back-
generally granted. In many ways the Army is extra-
ordinarily buiiness-like. I was always impressed by
the desks in the Army offices ; severely neat ; nothing
out of place; all sorts of little gadgets for keeping
straying j>encils or pens in their places ; a nice orderly
row of wooden receptacles marked, ''In," " Provi-
sional," " Out," and so on. They were like the
sanitary arrangements in all the camps; amazingly
clean, severe and business-like. There ought to be a
special medal struck for the men of the Sanitary Sec-
146
THE ARMY FHOM WITHOUT
tions, and their yellow armlet should be regarded as a
badge of honour. Here is one jx)int at least in which
the war must have taught invaluable lessons to hun-
dreds of thousands of men. M. Repoules might have
said that next to the godliness of the British soldier
comes his cleanliness.
As a rule, I found the Army extraordinarily prompt
in dealing with any matter put before them. I never
felt this so much as in the case of a pair of old boots.
I had sent these to the Officers' (Ordnance) Clothing
Store, where boots were tiaken in to be repaired. A
few days later there was a ring on the telephone : —
" That you. . . . ? Just had a report in about a pair
of boots of yours sent in for repair on the 17th. Report
says : ' Reference, etc., etc., etc., the welt on these
boots is entirely gone, and to be repaired properly they
will need re-welting. Cost of this will be fourteen
shillings. Please enquire whether sender will be willing
to pay this amount.' Well now, what about it? Do
you think it is worth your while to have these boots
re-welted ? Of course, old boots are always better to
weaj than new."
" I quite agree with you. They're a very comfort-
able pair. I'll pay the fourteen shillings cheerfully."
*' Right. That's all I wanted to know. I'll send it
through. . . . Oh, four or five days. Cheero."
Now if anybody had bothered me about a pair of
old boots ! But it was this officer's job to deal with
old boots, among many other things, and he treated the
matter just as he would if he had suddenly been ordered
to staxt a potato farm, or take a trip round Macedonia
and see what were the prospects of the hay crop.
It was my fortune to have a good deal to do with
Staff officers. In the lighter literature of the war one
reads a great deal about '' a gilded member of the Staff
147
SALONICA AND AFTER
appeared," or, *' Of course, if you're on the Staff," or,
" I met a Staff officer the other day." I saw lots of
Staff officers nearly every day; talked with them,
smoked with them, even joked with them. Like the
schoolmarm of whom the little girl said in an awe-
struck whisper, " Look, Mother, there's Teacher
smiling," Staff officers are really quitte human. After
prolonged study of them I am convinced that the old,
authentic regular Staff officer is in many ways one of
the best types turned out by Dame Nature. Take him
for all in all, the Englishman of a certain class cannot
be beaten. But with all his qualities I think our regular
Staff officer, P.S.C., or otherwise, has often one great
lack — he is not in touch sufficiently with general, ordin-
ary, contemporary life. To this it may be replied that
a military expert has only need tb know about military
affairs. But the Great War showed how elastic and
wide military affairs can be. One often felt that a Staff
officer might be excellent at his job ; he was probably
also a first-class man at sport, and might know a great
deal about music, literature or anything else. But he
had never seen enough of existence as the average
man knows it, and remained a little aloof from the
world's ordinary affairs. In short, he was a little too
stiff and elevated in his attitude to life — ordinary life,
which does not include merely the best things which
merely the best people engage in. I think that the
ideal training for a Staff officer should give him a year's
experience of life in more varied forms ; send him, say,
to knock roimd New York for a year so that he could
learn to say " See here, now " without blushing; send
him for a year to live in certain places in Yorkshire
and Lancashire, so that he could appreciate that this
great Empire of ours contains such things as factory
operatives ; or even give him a year's general experience
148
THE ARMY FROM WITHOUT
in Fleet Street. Then, I think we could turn out the
perfect man ; the Regular Staff Officer who has rubbed
shoulders with the real world and met people who when
you use the word *^polo" think of a football being
thrown about in a swimming bath. I say this with all
the more conviction because several such men exist,
and I have met them. I know one who combined the
traditions of a good name, and years spent in a Lancer
Regiment, with a considerable experience in a commer-
cial branch of life in which he had to compete for his
living. The result was marvellous and, applied to his
particular job, did quite a lot of good to the B.S.F.
He looked through an angle about four times wider
than he would have done without his experience of
ordinary "common or garden" life. Napoleon inten-
ded to be rude when he called us a nation of shop-
keepers, but if it helped us in beating the Boehe a
little quicker "next time," I should be quite happy to
see a Passed Staff College man keeping a tobacco stall
for a little while. His democratic experience behind
the counter would be an invaluable training, giving him
experience in dealing with all possible types of men,
from shag to Corona-Coronas.
Having thrown so many bouquets at the Staff Officer
one must certainly say something about the Regimen-
tal Officer who came down to town on his infrequent
shopping excursions and who, in the words of "The
Song of Tiadatha " : —
" In his hob-nailed boots he slithered
Up and down Rue Venizelos."
The plain, unvarnished Regimental Officer was a
factor who was very largely responsible in keeping our
Macedonian show together, through sickness and long
discouragement. I got to know some hundreds of
th€m personially, and some scores of them very well
149
SALONICA AND AFTER
indeed. They were always the same ; unfailingly cheer-
ful and making a joke of the things that irked most.
When I say "unfailingly cheerful," I don't mean that
they thought the war a pleasant occupation. They
hated it from the soles of their boots upwards, and
sometimes asked pathetically, "How long do you think
it will last ? . . . Another two YEARS ! For God's sake,
don't say that!" It was a cri du coeur, all right.
They loathed Macedonia, and had every reason to.
The interminable trenches, with only an occasional
spell out of the line — further back somewhere on yet
another hillside; the same old Bulgar mountains
always looking down wherever they were; perhaps a
course of machine-guns or trench-mortars as a doubt-
ful break in the monotony; a spell down at a Base
hospital with a "go" of malaria or a fragment of Bul-
gar shell received in a "stunt," with — the best thing of
all — a stay at the pleasant Officers' Convalescent , Home
up at Hortiach to follow ; and then back again up the
line on the same old round. There was a good deal
more fighting on t!he Balkan front than the people at
home were aware of, and some sectors of trenches,
under very frequent artillery fire, which were as warm
as anything in France. One never knew, as they went
back again, whether they would turn up once more for
another dinner at the White Tower or the Club. One
always had a keen personal interest to know what bat-
talions had been engaged. But if it was not one, it was
another, and quite a number of cheery faces which one
hoped to see in after years are now missing for ever.
Bismarck said that the Balkans were not worth the
bones of a single Pomeranian Grenadier. But a good
many very fine Britons are lying there.
And the Men ? For two years and more Salonica
saw next to nothing of our soldiers of the front line.
150
THE ARMY FROM WITHOUT
Courtesans and contractors had made their fortunes;
Constantine had played his long trick and lost;
Britain had changed from a land where no man had
to be a soldier, into a land where men of fifty were
forced to be soldiers, and still the troops who moved up-
country in 1916 had not paid a visit to Salonica, unless
it were in aji ambulance. It was only at the beginning
of 1918 that it was found practicable to bring parties
of these men down to the Base for a sort of semi-leave,
and I remember seeing the first groups of them walking
along our main streets. There was not much to boast
of, but there were trams and pavements and real
houses, and they were looking round about them with
all the naive wonder of a yokel on his first visit to
London. Think of that, O ye Comedians who sang,
"If you want a holiday go to Salonica," or whatever
the silly thing was. Some of our men certainly went
to Salonica for a holiday, but it was after sticking it
for two and a half years or more up in the wilderness.
And how they cliafed at the misconception and laxik
of recognition at home ! People simply do not under-
stand how this rankled and ate into them. A says care-
lessly an unkind thing of B» The thing probably
passes out of ^'s mind immediately, and is for ever
forgotten. But if by chance B has happened to over-
hear it — well, he never forgets. It was exactly the
same with the unthinking people — comedians and
others — who said, or wrote, ill-natured things of the
Salonica Army. With the people at home it was merely
a passing reference, light as air, fleeting as thought.
There were so many other and more interesting things
to think about. But the men out in Macedonia thought
over these things, brooded over them, discussed them
rancor ously in '* bivvy " or trench. What was the
good of passing years in the Balkans for fat-minded
151
SALONICA AND AFTER
people at home who didn't care a damn ! ; who thought
they were having a ''good time in Salonica" ? Oh,
but there was some language used about the people at
home.
And this is, perhaps, the place to say that the reader
of these pages who does not happen to know Macedonia
may have gathered the impression that it is a moder-
ately pleasant place to live in. There is quite a lot of
talk in them of striking scenery, of Army Theatres,
cheery mess rooms, and so on. But if an idea has been
given that campaigning in the Balkans has anything
pleasant about it for the average man in the ranks, that
idea should be abandoned. Unless you have lived the
life of "bivvies" ; unless you have lived for tbree years
in all weathers witiiout ever a proper roof to your head,
and, as a rule, in considerable discomfort; unless you
have splashed about for weeks on end in mud and sleet,
or lived on the baked, scorched earth through an in-
terminable six-months summer, with chlorinated water
as your only drink — well, if you have not lived this life
you cannot hope to describe it. And the writer was
lucky enough not to have been living that particular
life, and so has perhaj>s not brought it' home sufficiently
to the reader. But the men lived it, and they know,
and no doubt some day some of them will adequately
describe it. Why, it was a red-letter day for the men
up-country if they tasted beer — and even then it was
only a thin Salonica brew. "What of that," the reader
may say. "A man can go without beer."
But the Salonica campaign taught me all the
good and comfort that can reside for very
many men in a simple pot of beer. It is not a
mere drink, to be poured down a man's throat just to
''wet his whistle." The drinking of beer is a ritlial
that enshrines most that he holds dear, that brings
152
THE ARMY FROM WITHOUT
him nearer tb home and all it means to him ; that con-
jures up all the scenes which were good or familiar to
him in the days before war claimed him. It means to
him what cut glass and finger bowls mean to some
other people. A single pot of beer can mean all the
difference between final "fed-upness" and a cheerful
view of campaigning. We are sympathetic to the
French soldier's love of his thin red wine. Let us then
be sympathetic to the British soldier's love for his
ration of beer — when good fortune brought it. The
two things are exactly parallel. Of course, in the New
Armies there was a very large proportion of men who
were entirely indifferent to the subtleties which may
be contained in a beer mug. But if they didn't want
their own pot of beer there was no service they could
not readily get in exchange for it.
After the victorious offensive in 1918, the Bishop of
London, who was out visiting the Balkan Army, wrote
a letter to the Times which, in the hie^ry of Salonica,
may well rank with St. Paul's epistles to the Thessa-
lonians. In it he asked eloquently for fairness to a
gallant force, and in commenting on the letter, the
Times put its fmger right on the spot. "Few of us at
home," it said, "have any conception how much our
praise, and when necessary our criticism, if only it is
sympathetic, means for the Armies at the front — ^how
much it sustains them in their trials and spurs them
to fresh efforts to victory. . . These men in our Eastern
Armies have had the dust and toil, without the laurel,
of the race to Victory."
As a matter of fact, the British troops in the Balkans
were particularly good men. The four Divisions
mainly concerned in the campaign were all of splendid
quality. One might even call it a picked Army. Aver-
age troops could certainly not have stuck the long
158
SALONICA AND AFTER
campaign, and rallied so magnificently for the final
desperate enterprise, as General Milne describes in his
1919 despatch. But such was the fatality which pur-
sued our Salonica Army that even when the great
break-through occurred their names hardly figured in
the general communique, which was issued from the
French command, and the people at home knew that
there had been a great Balkan victory without knowing
that our men had played a vital part in winning it.
And while we are on this subject it will be as well to
give part of an interview which a French correspon-
dent, M. Gaston Richard, had with one of the leading
French commanders in the Balkans, and which was
published in the Petit Parisien. I took it from a Con-
stantinople paper which had copied it.
*'The Allied Armies were marvellously keyed up, and
their high moral certainly dominated that of the Bul-
gars. No Army endeavoured to act alone, and this
harmony of forces counted for a great deal in the
decision.
''Let us take for example the work of the Anglo-
Greek Army which operated on a front where the enemy
was constantly expecting to be attacked, and where
he had in consequence multiplied his defences, brought
up great reserves, and placed in position an enormous
quantity of artillery. Behind this thick curtain of
defences, and in view of an offensive on their own
part, the enemy had gathered formidable reserves of
material. The mission of the Anglo-Greek Army was to
pin the enemy to the ground and to oblige him to em-
ploy his reserves in order to prevent him sending them
to pK)ints menaced elsewhere. This role it filled mar-
vellously, and if you had been able to be present at
all that it accomplished, you would have been
enthusiastic.
154
THE ARMY FROM WITHOUT
"And when later, the Bulgars evacuated the Doiran
front in order to fly towards StVumitza, the Anglo-
Greek Army, in pressing the pursuit with energy, pre-
vented any re-grouping of divisions and contributed
to change the enemy refreat into an irremediable rout.
This must be said for the honour of truth."
We ask for no more definite tribute as to the part
of the B.S.F. in the great victory which was the real
and authentic beginning of the end. "We knocked the
props one by one from under him," said Mr. Lloyd
George. Doiran was the first prop.
In Salonica we had, at one time and another, very
many interesting personalities. There was the Crown
Prince of Serbia, rather austere of countenance, who
was not very often seen about. He was often up at
the Serbian front, but when in Salonica kept very
much to his residence and his work. One of the few
occasions on which I remember seeing him abroad was
on H.M.S. "St. George," the Depot ship, which was
one of Salonica 's greatest institutions, on the occasion
of St. George's Day. Then we had M. Venizelos, who
was with us for a long while, and occasionally M. Pas-
itch, Serbia's veteran statesman. Essad Pasha,
Albania's Chieftain, lived in a large house in the
fashionable end of the town ; and during the long period
when he reigned supreme, General Sarrail, Commander-
in-Chief of the Allied Armies, was often to be seen
about. Tall, handsome, white-haired and energetic.
General Sarrail graced most functions with his presence.
He loved to see and be seen, and had the gift for mixing
with men of all kinds. And at various times we had
many other striking personalities with us.
But there was one whose presence also meant a great
deal in Salonica, who was practically unknown to the
155
SALONICA AND AFTER
Salonica public. I refer to General Sir George Milne,
the British Army Commander. The two Generals were
extraordinarily contrasted, and one avoided publicity
as much as the other appreciated it. General Milne
spent a very large part of his time up-country. During
three years his journeys by motor car averaged 75 miles
a day, excluding great distances from point' to point
on horseback. One may say of our General that he was
largely typical of his Army. Out of the limelight, say-
ing little, doing much — this may stand fairly as the
motto of the British Salonica Forces.
156
CHAPTER XIII.
The Conversion of Greece.
Few chapters of the Great War are more interesting
and more strange than the conversion of Greece, by
which gradually she ceased to be an active enemy
under King Constantine, passed through a long and
difficult period under Venizelos after the expulsion of
the false monarch, and finally emerged as one of the
Allies, sending her Divisions into the line of battle
and taking a gallant part in the final offensive, which
brought us to victory. All nations are prone to think
very well of their own virtues and some of the Greeks
flatter themselves that it was their help, brought into
the Balkan Theatre at a vital time, which won the
war. We will let them argue this point out with some
Americans. What is certain is that the conversion of
the Greek Army from a source of danger at one of our
weakest points to a powerful Ally — from a Balkan
point of view — fighting for us in its own territory, com-
pletely changed the aspect of things in the Balkans and
gave us the factor which made a renewed offensive on
the Balkan front possible.
And what a chapter it was of intrigue and lying and
falseness ! When the full sftory of what happened in
Athens is told, it will prove to be the most amazing
jumble of espionage and counter-espionage of the whole
war. It was mediaeval, cloak and dagger work, with
spies, mistresses, courtesans, politicians and statesmen
all playing their part; with the sinister serio-oomic
157
SALONICA AND AFTER
figures of Baron Schenk, of Germany — with his millions
for propaganda and bribes — ^and King Constantine (also
of Germad||( overhanging all. A point that was not
quite sufficiently appreciated in those days was that
Constantine was first of all a German Field Marshal,
and that being King of Greece was, in his mind, a very
Becondary affair. From his point of view, with his
German military training, the one was an infinitely
gre^r honour than the other. He was just as keen
onJmping the "field-greys" sweep conquering through
th^^orld as was the Kaiser himself. He was in addi-
tion'a rather stupid and very stubborn man, very much
under the influence of his German wife, the Kaiser's
sister, and finally he was frantically jealous of Venize-
los and his influence with the country.
In those most difficult days of 1916, no man would
seem ever to have had such an impossible task ahead
of him as had Venizelos. He might, by some almost
Divine inspiration, beheve in the final success of the
Allies, but what was there to make the average Greek
feel A| The forces of snobbery were as powerful in
AthSJ as anywhere else. The King was the King :
he wM closely allied to the great potentate who seemed
to have the fate of the world in his hand, and to prac-
tically every other royal house as well. The German
arms seemed to many people to be invincible. It was
quite a big thing for Athenians to follow Venizelos into
exile in Macedonia, leaving all that the King and his
Court and the pro-German capital meant behind them,
and rally round the standard of revolt in Macedonia.
Of course it had been done many times before in his-
tory, and no doubt will be done again. And there is
one point about the Macedonian Revolution, which
Venizelos came up to Salonica to lead, which marks it
out from most others. It was only made possible by
158
THE CX)NVERSION OF GREECE
the presence of the Allies in Greece, and could not have
taken place without them. The movement could de-
clare itself with safety in Salonica, because the presence
of the Allies made it impossible for Constantine's arm
to reach it!s followers. The Alhes did not at first en-
courage the revolution, because Greece was still nomin-
ally a neutral country. But anybody who took part
in initiating the movement, or who came there to join
it, was sure of a safe asylum. Venizelos himself would
have been quite powerless without this great factor.
And there were many Greeks who were quick to see that
it had become a "heads I win, tails you lose," sort of
situation. If Germany won the war, then Constantine
would secure all he wanted from his brother-in-law.
And if the Allies won, they would not be able to forget
Venizelos and his loyalty to them. The leaders of the
revolutionary movement may no doubt be acquitted of
the idea of thinking on these lines, but this aspect of the
situation certainly appealed to many people.
As has already been made plain, when the Allies
landed in Salonica they found themselves in the toils
of an extraordinary web of hostile influence which ham-
pered their movements in every direction. Everything
we did was known to the Greeks ; their Army surroun-
ded us and could at any moment have cut the railways
and, during the retreat, left the Franco-British an easy
prey to the Bulgars; and Salonica positively swarmed
with German agents paid by Baron Schenk from Athens.
And the situation was enormously complicated by the
fact that Greece was not a declared enemy, but a covert
one; and that Constantine, aided by his shifty crew
of Scouloudis, Lambros, Dousmanis and Co., knew
exactly how to play fast and loose with the Chancel-
leries of the Allies. The Army Commanders at Salonica
had not a free hand in dealing with the menace which
159
SALONICA AND AFTER
encompassed them. They were there to be "shot at,"
but, for a long time, could not reply. Constantine
thought he had us in a net, and that sooner or later
he would be able to hand us over en bloc to his friends
the enemy. Even as far as he went he was one of the
most successful of Prussia's Field Marshals, but what
he accomplished was nothing to what he plotted.
However, General Sarrail was not the man to stand
too much nonsense, and following a German air raid
on the town on December 30th, 1915, which amounted
to a declaration by the enemy that Salonica was no
longer neutral territory, he immediately cleared out all
the enemy Consulates — German, Austrian, Bulgarian,
and Turkish, taking all their archives and packing all
t!he personnel off by sea. All these Consulates were
so many organised centres of espionage. In the lull
which followed the active military operations of the
expedition to try and help Serbia, there was no lack of
incident. German Zeppelins and aeroplanes bombed
the town, and on the night of May 4-5, 1916, a Zeppelin
was brought down, without having dropped a bomb,
by the guns of the Fleet and the Allied anti-aircraft
guns, falling in the Vardar marshes. It was generally
believed that the honour fell to H.M.S. Agamenmon,
but the point always rested in dispute. A little before
this, the Greek fort of Kara-Bouroun, which dominated
the entrance to the Gulf, was captured by a happy
operation which was so well and suddenly carried out
as to leave Constantine 's men nothing to do but gasp.
All the time the organisation of the "Birdcage" was
going on feverishly, and the troops which came out
expecting to fight almost as they landed, found instead
that they had many weeks of hard digging ahead of
them. The whole of the Greek frontier had become
very debateable ground, which the Bulgars might cross
160
THE CONVERSION OF GREECE
at any time. The Allies hastened to take up various
strategical points, from Fiorina on the west to the
Struma on the east; here and there our cavalry was
in touch with the enemy; vital railway bridges were
blown up. This was more than justified by events
soon to follow. At the end of May, Constantine's party
accomplished its greatest treachery up to date. The
forts and passes barring his country from the Bulgar —
"the beasts with human faces," as Constantine had
called them in the days of 1912-13, when he was flat-
tered by the title of ''The Bulgarslayer" — were given
up, and the Greek Army (with the exception of several
stout units) retired under orders before the invasion.
The Bulgars swarmed down on to all the strategic
points covering Central and Eastern Macedonia. On
June 1st, 1916, the Bulgars occupied Rupel. Two days
later General Sarrail declared a state of siege in
Salonica. It was rather piquant that this was the
fete day of Constantine, and the town was gay with
bunting in his honour. While a crowd in their best
clothes were proceeding to St. Sophia to be present at
the solemn Te Deum, Allied patrols and machine-guns
appeared in the streets at strategic points, and almost
in the twinkling of an eye the posts and telegraphs,
the veins and nerves of Constantine's widespread es-
pionage system, were in Allied hands.
When Rupel Fort was taken by the Bulgars, the
garrison made some sort of resistance. But the tragi-
comedy was complete when later it was learned that
by the orders of the Athens clique the shots fired had
been blank, and that the surrender had been frankly
" greased " by a new loan from Germany. So may
men, at the bidding of an overpowering desire or ob-
session, juggle with the honour of their country. The
invasion of Eastern Macedonia continued with little to
161 M
SALONICA AND AFTER
stop it. At Demir-Hissar and Seres, Colonel Christo-
doulos, commanding part of the 6th Greek Division,
made a spirited defence and afterwards retired on
Kavalla. But here, early in August, Colonel Hadjo-
poulos, commanding the Greek 4th Corps, gave up most
of his corps, his material and the forts to the Bulgars.
This base surrender included 10,000 men, 3 groups of
mountain artillery and field artillery ; the heavy artil-
lery of the Kavalla forts, 7,000 reserve rifles and large
depots of munitions of all sorts. Hadjopoulos and his
men had a splendid time at first and were feted in
Austria and Germany. But their later adventures were
quite different. They were interned. Many died of
neglect and the rest were put on to work for the Bulgars
behind their lines. Christodoulos, with a large propor-
tion of his Division, secured French naval help just in
time to avoid capture, crossed to the island of Thasos,
and on September 18th made a triumphal entry into
Salonica. A large French transport, and two smaller
Greek ships, came into the harbour with the four
thousand heroes. The excitement was terrific, and the
cheering intense as the men, after landing, marched
along the front. The gallant Colonel was covered with
flowers, and kissed many times. As things were in
Greece, he had thoroughly earned it.
Meanwhile Salonica had been very much sitting up
and taking notice of the handing over of Macedonia to
the enemy. The Press campaign in the Greek papers
against the Athens clique was very fierce and bitter.
I remember on July 1st being called over to the offices
of the Rizospastis (Radical) to see the outrage done by
a group of Royalist officers. The editor had written a
fierce article against Constantine. The morning it
appeared sixteen Greek officers walked up the stairs.
Two stood guard and the others entering the editorial
162
THE CONVERSION OF GREECE
sanctum, drew their swords. " Are you the Editor-in-
Chief ? " they asked. The Editor replied that he was.
They thereupon fell upon him and his assistant and
wrecked the place.
When I called a little later, the Editor was sitting
with a bloodstained bandage round his head writing a
fiercer article for the morrow. A French officer was
taking notes of the outrage. The pathetic flimsy fur-
niture of the office was smashed; a portrait of Veni-
zelos on the wall was beaten in. Sympathisers
crowded in to shake hands. And the Editor went on
writing, occasionally lifting his left hand to be seized
by an admirer. At General SarraiPs instance the six-
teen officers were afterwards sent to Athens for disci-
plinary action, but nothing unpleasant' happened to
them.
Monster meetings of protest against Constantine's
policy were held in Salonica. The excitement and
indignation resulted in the formation of the League for
National Defence, and its Headquarters were in the
very building near the White Tower from whence was
launched, some nine years earlier, the Young Turk
Revolution. A vibrant proclamation to the people was
posted all over the town, calling on them to join the
movement, and calling on the Greek Army to join the
Army of National Defence, and resist the handing over
of their counfry to the hereditary enemy. Everybody
in Salonica was talking of revolution. We talked of it
at lunch in the Club, but one imagined it was too hot
for anybody to do anything. The air was full of sen-
sational rumours from Athens, and Const antine was
said to have fled. In the afternoon it was reported
that the battalion of Cretan gendarmes in the town,
Venizelists to a man (Venizelos himself being a Cretan)
had really begun the revolution. So it would seem.
168
SALONICA AND AFTER
The town was seething with excitement, which ap-
proached delirium when Colonel Zymbrakakis, putting
himself at the head of the gendarmes, and followed by
an enormous crowd, proceeded to French General Head-
quarters, and offered the support of himself and his
followers to General Sarrail. There were loud cries of
" Down with Const'antine " and " Zito Venizelos " as
the procession returned. And on the night of August
30-31st the Salonica Revolution definitely arrived. It
was in many ways a comic opera sort of affair, but it
was big with consequences. It was the real beginning
of the entry of Greece into the war. The Royalist
officers and men who would not join the movement were
sent to Old Greece and the Committee of National
Defence began immediately to mobilize Macedonia.
Venizelos landed in Salonica on October 9th, after
having visited his native Crete and other islands. He
left Athens secretly on September 27th. The revolt
spread to many of the ^gean Islands ; Corfu, on the
far Adriatic, joined in, and a large part of the Greek
fleet came with the statesman to Salonica.
The town and the harbour was smothered in blue and
white flags, and portraits of Venizelos were everywhere.
All portraits of the King and Queen in the town had
disappeared some time before. Noting this at Floca's,
I asked a waiter where they were. " In the cellar,"
he replied unguardedly. "To be brought up again if
there is another change ? " I enquired. He grinned and
passed on to the next customer.
We watched the landing of Venizelos and his fol-
lowers from the balcony of the club. The crowds below
were enormous, and a little before the moment General
Sarrail arrived and pushed his way through tb the
Marble Steps. As Venizelos came ashore all the steam
sirens of the ships opened up with their joyous wailing.
164
THE CONVERSION OF GREECE
The pleasant and mobile features of the famous patriot
were wreathed in smiles. The French Commander-in-
Chief shook hands with the head of the new Provisional
Government and pushed his way out of the crowd
again. A mass of shouting people surrounded the Great
Cretan, who was swayed this way and that. One could
not help thinking of the chances of an assassin down
there, and there were many in Salonica who would have
been glad to hear that the new movement had been
arrested at its triumphant birth. With Venizelos and
his companions still surrounded by a compact mass of
people, the procession then moved off down the water
front, with everywhere flowers and cries of delight and
enthusiasm flying through the air.
Venizelos came to Salonica accompanied by his two
great henchmen, the diminutive and distinguished
General DangUs, who reminded one rather of Lord
Roberts, and Admiral Condouriotis, a popular hero of
the sea war of 1912 with Turkey. They made an im-
pressive trio, and under the impulse of their presence
the new movement made rapid progress. They formed
the National Triumvirate. All the public services in
Macedonia were taken over by the Provisional Govern-
ment, which was almost immediately recognised by the
British and French. Lord Granville was sent out as
Minister from London, and Salonica grew rapidly in
its own estimation. That was the hey-day of life at
the club. Many of the better-class Athenians had fol-
lowed Venizelos. There were distinguished persons in
the club, and what is more, handsome women. Officers
down from the Liae used to sit in deep arm chairs and
look at them across the room, fascinated ; thinking a
hundred things, no doubt, about their '' ain folk " at
home. Evening dress, both masculine and feminine,
appeared. It was a great time. Meanwhile the mobili-
165
SALONICA AND AFTER
zation of Macedonia was proceeding rapidly, and one
saw constant processions of the most rag-tag and bob-
tail people it is possible to imagine, guarded by gen-
darmes, and preceded by skirling primitive pipes,
marching glumly to the various unsanitary places
where they were locked up until they could be made
into soldiers. To pretend that the great bulk of these
people wanted to fight for Greece or anybody else is
absurd. They were of all Balkan nationalities, and
they did not care a hang to whom Macedonia belonged
if only they could be left in peace. What a happy land
is England, where we have no ethnological problems,
and where we know exactly at what points the race
begins and ends. In any string of these recruits there
were probably men of Greek, Bui gar, Serb, Kutzo-
Vlach, Albanian and gipsy race. There were very few
Jews. The Salonica Jew is a clever person, and by an
infinity of means managed to "wangle" out of mobili-
zation, though many of them had quite narrow escapes.
But one could hardly blame them for being unen-
thusiastic. The Jew has been by no means pleased
with the coming of the Greeks to Salonica. They smack
too much of competitors. Many Jews indeed sigh for
the old Turkish days, with their mixture of abuses and
purchasable privileges. They always knew how to get
on with the Turk. In any case they have no national
feeling for Macedonia, although they have a distinct
civic feeling for Salonica. Many of them, at various
times, came to me and said earnestly, " Could not Eng-
land take over Salonica ? " There is no end to what
we might do if we listened to everybody.
Only four days after arriving, Venizelos and his two
chief supporters were entertained to a great banquet
in the White Tower Restaurant. It was a brilliant
occasion. The pale blue and white of Greece blazed
166
THE CONVERSION OF GREECE
everywhere and leading from the gate to the door of
the banqueting room (the scene of many uproarious
Allied evenings) was a guard of Cretan Gendarmes in
their fine-looking full-dress uniforms, which inelude the
funniest baggy trousers known. The White Tower
produced such a show of glass and napery as fairly
staggered one. They had kept this very dark up to
now, the average drinking glass in a Salonica restaurant
being a quarter of an inch thick. Venizelos, sitting
between General Danglis and Admiral Condouriotis,
seemed radiant with joy and enthusiasm. A Greek
officer rose and read out a long heroic poem in ancient
Greek which I was informed very few people under-
stand a word of. And when Venizelos addressed the
meeting one felt that here was a great man, although
I did not understand a word of his discourse either. He
was simplicity itself, but he had the true art of the
orator. He held them all in his clenched hand, and
the " Zitos " that rose after some of his passages were
thunderous.
Meanwhile Const ant ine and his numerous followers
down at Athens were surpassing themselves in bluff and
chicanery. He was making urgent representations to
his brother-in-law to do something, and marking time
with the Allied representations until, as he hoped, the
" field-greys," having finished their all-conquering
bull-rush through Roumania, would come sweeping down
through the Balkans, and finish the Salonica Armies
once for all. Before the pressure of the Allied Govern-
ments, and the presence of their blockading fleet, now
off the Piraeus, Const antine did amazing tricks of poli-
tical juggling, and one cabinet of third-rate politicians
succeeded another with extraordinary rapidity. The
epistrates, or reservists, were all served out with arms.
Greece was now divided into two definite halves with
167
SALONICA AND AFTER ^
the famous neutral zone in between. Constantine was
King in the South, and Venizelos, under the sheltering
wing of the Allies, the power in the North. The Allies
pressed their demands, and with his eye on the battle
line in Roumania Constantine gave way just as much
as was necessary, and no more, to keep the Allies dan-
gling. Baron Schenk, with his propaganda millions all
spent, and the rest of the German, Austrian and Bul-
garian clique, were kicked out of Athens. But things
were going beautifully — for the enemy — in Roumania,
and Constantine, cheered by his wireless reports from
Berlin, judged the moment opportune to show resistance.
The reservists were all armed. The hills of Athens
were fortified. The Allied ultimatum, which insisted
on disarmament of Greece as a guarantee of her neu-
trality, was drawing to a close. It expired on Decem-
ber 1st. On that day came one of the Allies' greatest
muddles and Constantine 's supreme treachery. The
Allied marines landed by Admiral d'Artige du Fournet,
were caught in ambush and shot down by machine-gun
and rifle fire, and for the best part of twenty-four
hours the French Admiral was a prisoner, and his
meals brought to him. The Allies' long duel with Con-
stantine seemed to have fizzled lamentably. For the
moment " My dear Tino " was on top.
Salonica was black with foreboding when the news
came through. Authentic details arrived three days
later. It was a period of heavy rain and the streets
were a vile, slippery quagmire, as is usual in wet
weather in Salonica. The gloomiest reports and im-
pressions ran round like wild-fire. The mixed local
population was exceedingly depressed, and looked at
the Allies with glances which seemed to say, " And to
think that we have trusted you all this time, and here
you are, going to lose the war after all." Constantine
168
THE CONVERSION OF GREECE
had at last declared himself. The news from Roumania
was the very worst. There would be a move north-
wards by the Greek Army. The Germans would come
down from Roumania. The Salonica Force would be
caught like a nut in crackers. People were saying
freely in the streets that it was the end of all Allied
operations based on Salonica. We should have to
evacuate or be crushed. "And then," thought the
townspeople, " where shall we be ; we who have said
openly that we like the Allies and want them to win."
I was approached as to whether it would be difficult
to get a passage with the British Navy.
One, of course, smiled at all this sort of thing, and
said, in effect, "Don't be silly." But whatever one
said, it was impossible to feel cheerful. It was a black
day. That evening, the town electric light was off — a
common occurrence. Outside the office windows, down
below in the wet and muddy street, with the rain
coming down ceaselessly, some sort of a fight was going
on. There was a revolver shot, and we could hear
the groans and gasps of struggling men out in the
darkness. It was reported that Italian and Greek
soldiers were fighting with their bayonets. The de-
pressing news, the pitch-black darkness of the stl'eets,
the rain, the gasping noises of the fight below — all
this gave an extraordinarily vivid impression of every-
thing going wrong, of ill-luck, of anarchy. There were
scared and white faces among the polyglot group of
compositors out in the composing room. Down at the
Club, later on at dinner, the blackest pessimism
reigned, and the people from Athens sat huddled to-
gether, talking in low voices and exchanging the
wildest rumours and ideas. At last, it seemed, the
sinister work of Constantine and his men had borne
its full fruit, and the blow in the back, which had
169
SALONICA AND AFTER
always been a possibility ever since the Allies came to
Salonica, would now be delivered under the worst
possible circumstances for us It was days
before the black cloud lifted a little from the town.
Who could have thought then, that within less than
six months King Constantine would have become ex-
King Constantine, and would have been drawn from
Athens as by a magnet, together with his Queen and
the Crown Prince, leaving behind his second son
Alexander as King ? And that a few days later, on
June 24th, 1917, M. Venizelos would re-enter Athens
amidst wild enthusiasm and find himself again at the
head of a united Greece, with full powers, backed by
the Allies, to guide his country along the road which
he had long foreseen truth and courage had traced for
her ?
The mills of the Allies ground very slowly, but in
the end they ground to some purpose. The bloody
events of December 1st, 1916, and the days imme-
diately afterwards, were followed by another ultimatum
on December 14th, in which Royalist Greece was
ordered to transfer her troops and munitions to the
southern province of the Peloponnese, where, joined
to the mainland only by the narrow Isthmus of Corinth,
they would no longer be a source of danger to the
Salonica Allies; and to cease immediately all move-
ments of troops and material towards the north. For
nearly six months longer Constantine played his astute
game, but always losing a little ; never living up to his
promises to the demands made on him, but never having
quite the courage to defy them entirely. Gradually,
but ceaselessly, the pressure of the Allies went on —
mixed though it was by a very strong dash of hesita-
tion and weakness — and still German help did not
170
THE CONVERSION OF GREECE
come to Athens. And at last we had drawn sufficient
of his teeth to make it possible to apply the final pres-
sure without any danger of an armed Greece rising in
our rear at the bidding of its pro-German King. A
strong French force, joined by a small detachment of
British (500 men of the East Yorkshire Regiment)
advanced down into Greece with the double object of
securing the corn crop of the Thessaly plains, and
threatening Athens from the north. The Isthmus of
Corinth was occupied, so that all the Greek troops and
material south of it in the Peloponnese were cut off.
And a strong Allied Fleet had Athens at the mercy of
its guns. On June 11th the King departed for
Switzerland, the first of the enemy " rois en exil."
His fall was partly one of the many quiet triumphs of
sea power. Without the sea open to her, Greece sooner
or later must capitulate. The blockade was an argu-
ment against which the wireless messages from Berlin
had no answer.
Greece still had many difficulties to face, but the
man at the head pulled her through. With great
labour and many ugly incidents — which were uniformly
dealt with in drastic fashion — the Greek Army was
re-organised and made to right-about-face. In April,
1918, 1 visited the first complete Greek Division to enter
in line with the British. They were on the Struma.
Before them the men saw Seres glinting white and
enticingly in the sunshine, and they wanted to take
it at a bound, and could not understand that they
would be annihilated if they tried to. Less than a year
before, this had been a Royalist unit — the first Larissa
Division. It was disbanded, and had slowly to be
reconstituted. "I am a soldier," said General Nider,
its commander, " and do not discuss politics. I am
glad to be in liaison with the British and I do what I
171
SALONICA AND AFTER
am told." More and more Divisions came into line,
with the French and ourselves, until, at the opening
of the big offensive, there were nine of them in the
field. The aspect of the Balkan situation had under-
gone a complete change. Greece, no longer threatening
us in our rear, was now in line with us. It largely
explains both our earlier difficulties and failures and
our final success. And it most certainly could never
have happened without the inspiration of one man,
Eleutherios Venizelos.
There is an authentic little anecdote which makes
a suitable envoi to this chapter. The armistice under
which Bulgaria capitulated was signed in Salonica on
the morning of September 29th. M. Venizelos, who
was present, returned immediately after the historic
ceremony to the house which he occupies when in
Salonica, formerly a residence of Constantine himself.
As he sat down to talk over what had happened, a
friend with him said : —
'* This must be a great moment for you. I wonder
what Constantine is thinking now ? "
And Venizelos replied : —
'' I am happy to think that man is still alive to know
it." And one may pardon even a statesman this little
common human touch of exultation.
Finally we may close this chapter with a short and
amazing poem which was written in honour of the
triumphal return to Athens. The author, one George
Alexiades sent it to The Balkan News, dating his
effusion from the Hotel d' Angle terre at Athens. The
poem ran : —
ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS.
" All in a tide flooded up
The Germans from their land ;
Innocent souls were frightened
Of th« wild band.
172
THE CONVERSION OF GREECE
Miles and miles flooded up.
Smashing defendless bars;
But suddenly he stepped in front
The tallest of the stars.
His helmet wasn't signing.
His eyes in a frown,
And on his forehead bearing
Steel thoughts instead of crown.
And all the Greeks are now sure
That with aid the British skill,
It's a common thing to bend
The ' German-made ' steel."
At least the author meant well, and we may forgive
his verse for the sake of his sentiments.
178
CHAPTER XIV.
Mud and Malaria.
Mud and Malaria ! In these two simple words were
enclosed the two outstanding difficulties under which
the Salonica Army laboured. Macedonia, when we
came to it, was practically roadless. There were only
tracks, and tracks, in wet or snowy weather, mean
mud. Not the genteel film of mud which one sees in
a London street, which energetic municipal roadmen
sweep down the handy grids with their squeegees. But
mud in the nth degree ; mud three or four feet deep ;
mud which will engulph a motor-car up to its bonnet
and swallow a kicking mule. The facetious anecdote
of the lorry driver discovered up to his neck in mud
on the Monastir Road, who said to his rescuers when
they came along, '' I'm all right, I'm standing on my
lorry," is no more an exaggeration than the average
fish story.
And malaria ! The history of the Panama Canal
shows what malaria may do to strong, healthy men.
Malaria helped to produce one of the greatest social
and political scandals in the history of modern France,
because de Lesseps' failure was largely due tb a tiny
pest which up to that time (in the 'eighties) science
was powerless to combat. The Americans came a few
years later, cleared the country of its malarial swamps,
and built the canal. But what the Americans could
do in Panama in peace time was not possible to us
in Macedonia in war time. We knew when we went
174
MUD AND MALARIA
there that it was a malarial country. But nobody
could possibly have realised to the full how deadly,
for instance, was the Struma Valley. It is one thing
to hear about a danger and another to experience it.
We know that cyclones occur in America, but we do
not quite expect to get struck by one if we go there.
We knew that malaria existed in Macedonia, but no-
body could possibly have foreseen that splendid batta-
lions a thousand strong would be struck down whole-
sale and in a few days or weeks reduced to a few score
healthy men. Even if we had realised it to the full,
there was no help for it. It proved to be our role to
go and fight there, and an army in a malarial country
is bound to become infected by malaria. Under peace
conditions, men can be protected. But in war, with
fighting going on, men have to take their chance.
The crying need of good roads was evident from the
first moment we set foot in the country. There were
three more or less main routes leading into Salonica —
the Monastir, the Naresh and the Seres Roads. They
were all — from the modem European requirements of
heavy traffic — in a shocking condition. Up to our
coming, in all the innumerable wars they had wit-
nessed, they had borne nothing but animal traffic.
We came with heavy lorry and motor traffic, and we
were like skaters who had no ice to skate on. We had
to make roads before we could use our vehicles. It is
true that we should have done better if we had been
provided with lighter lorries — say like the Italian one-
ton motor vans. But that is another story, and does
not ui any way concern the B.S.F.
The road up to Monastir did not at first much con-
cern us. It was chiefly an affair for the French, and
also that region was served by the railway. There was
175
SALONICA AND AFTER
also a railway to Doiran, in which direction ran the
Naresh road. But there was no railway up to the
Struma Front, and there we had an Army Corps,
consisting varyingly of two or three Divisions. The
laws of modem war say that an Army Corps must be
.backed up by a line of railway. But on the Struma
Sector we had three Divisions fifty miles from their
base, and one very bad road with which to supply them.
The troops had to be sent up-country, whatever else
happened. We then had to improvise the means to
keep them supplied in food, ammunition and the
thousand and one things of which an army of to-day
has need.
The reader will have noticed that the Seres Road
occurs as a sort of chorus, a Greek Chorus if you like,
in this book. It is always popping in, like King Charles'
head. And this is as it should be. The Seres Road
largely dominated the Balkan Campaign. It repre-
sented only a fraction of our difficulties and our road-
making, but it stood for so much in the general scheme
of things. The British can no more think of Macedonia
without the Seres Road than the country t!ripper can
think of London without Nelson's column. The two
go together — and incidentally, the making of the road
was one of the finest pieces of work accomplished by
any British Army in the war.
In the later summer of 1916 we began to take the
road in hand. Previous to this there had been a colos-
sal amount of work within the region of the "Bird-
cage." Heavens, but how our poor infantrymen had
to dig in Macedonia ! Their first task was to construct
all the defences and trenches which ran along the
edge of the steep line of hills covering the town, and
the 10th (Irish) Division particularly had some very
heavy strategic road-making to do on the steep slopes
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MUD AND MALARIA
of Mount Hortiach (nearly 4,000 feet high) which, in
case of an attack to drive us into the sea, would have
been the chief bastion of our defence. All this, in a
sense, went to nought once we had moved up-country
to face the enemy on the immensely stronger line he
had prepared up there. We had to start road-making
then with a will, to ensure a life-line for the troops on
the new front. The infantry could not be employed
on this work. They had their own work to do in dig-
ging more trenches where they were. Native labourers
were employed — in itself a big organisation — and we
began on the task of converting the seventy kilometres
of semi-track that ran up and down the steep hills as
far as the edge of the Struma Valley, into a road that
would bear the weight we wanted to put on it.
With great labour the work was done as well as
circumstances would allow, and for months — at the
cost of unremitting attention and patching — served its
pnrpK)se. We were not to foresee at that time that we
should need the road for three long years, and that the
strain on it would become heavier and heavier. All
seemed fairly well, although such an imperfect line of
conmiunication was naturally always a source of great
concern to those responsible. And then came the
tragedy. The winter of 1916 arrived, and with it very
heavy rains. The road under the terrific pressure and
weight we were compelled to put on it went to pieces.
The greatest trouble occurred on the high stretch of
road from Lahana onwards, to the summit of the hills
on the Struma Valley, and particularly from there down
the steep, giddy descent that drops 1800 feet down on
to the plain. The scenes that happened there for
weeks on end in the bad weather can only be faintly
conveyed in print. They must have been seen to be
believed. The road simply disappeared. It became a
177 N
SALONICA AND AFTER
giant's staircase of mud slides. It was, in parts, like
the bed of a mountain torrent, and when the heavy
rains were falling the torrent itself was there, all com-
plete. What had been a firm, neat road running down
a mountain side, curving in and about in great loops,
and with nicely constructed drainage ditches on each
side, became merely a disfiguration on the face of
Nature. It was a mud hole, twenty miles long, with
long stretches of it tipped to such alarming angles that
even the mud ran out. The lorries which thudded and
churned their adventurous way thirty-five miles up
from Salonica had to give up the struggle a little way
beyond Lahana. They stuck, struggled forward, stuck
again, swayed this way and that, and sank to their
final plunge, lying at an angle and looking in their
huge helplessness rather like an elephant brought down
on its knees by the hunter. For weeks on end the M.T.
drivers were out from three in the morning, at which
time the convoys started, until ten o'clock or later at
night. Chilled through and through with the cold,
crushed with fatigue, they would have to be at the
wheel again after four hours' sleep. Some of them
drove half asleep, or in a sort of drunkenness of fatigue.
But there was nothing else to be done. The three
Divisions on the Struma had to be fed and supplied,
and this was the only possible way to get at them.
When the lorries came to their final morass the
mule transport took on. Imagine the scene with the
bottom of the road fallen out, the rain dropping in
torrents, and the long trains of limbers struggling
forward. Imagine the tugging and shoving, the
shouts and bad language and despair, with lim-
bers sunk over their axles and the mules in the
liquid mud to their bellies. There were gangs of sol-
diers and labourers shovelling out mud and water, try-
178
MUD AND MALARIA
ing to level up what would not be levelled, and make a
passage for the badly-needed rations and supplies. For
days and weeks on end the rain came down on sodden,
hungry and tired officers and men, and on dejected
mules, whose eloquent ears spoke of their own misery.
Lucky for us that horse-mastership is a cult in the
British Army and that the big, bony animals from the
Argentine were kept in a condition which enabled them
to do their arduous work. A British mule made any
other mule in the Balkan Armies look a very miserable
object. And they needed all their strength and con-
dition for the interminable, sliding descent down to the
plain ; with the limber bucking and kicking high in the
air behind them as it fell into one hole and was ttigged
out of another.
All this was not to be endured. In fact, it was im-
possible to fight a war under such conditions. It was
decided to take the Seres Road thoroughly in hand and
mould it to our will. In this we were embarking on a
very big task. It meant bringing dozens of steam-
rollers from England, many sets of stone-crushing
machinery, and innumerable other things. The whole
of the country through which the road ran was carefully
prospected for hard stone, which would make good road
metal, but Macedonia's rocks do not produce Aberdeen
granite. We had to take what we could get. Quarries
were started at many points, convenient and otherwise.
Native labour — men, women and children, were en-
gaged by the thousand. R.E. Companies divided the
road, from Piccadilly Circus to Kilo 72, into sections.
Then all day long the quarries began to rumble and
erupt, and primitive native carts, drawn by sleepy oxen
or buffaloes, supplemented our own horse transport in
carting the chunks of stone to the roadside, where they
were piled in nice orderly stacks, ready for the hammers
179
SALONICA AND AFTER
of the stone-breakers. At all points one came on these,
a wide circle of women and girls, their heads bound up
in kerchiefs and cloths of all colours, tap-tapping away
all day long, with a few Greek overseers to look after
them and perhaps a solitary, thoughtful British corporal
in charge of the lot. With the bright sun shining on
their many-coloured garments, the women and girls
made most effective tableaux, and a group of two or
three hundred stone-breakers working on a Macedonian
road would have been well worth the attention of any
artist's brush. Hundreds and thousands of tons of pre-
pared "metal" were thus poured on to the road. On
what had been the mud slides leading down to the
plain, one saw it thus for long distances piled up two
feet high. It was crushed in, Macedonia sucked it up
greedily, and two or three days later you would see
the same stretch of road dressed with another thick
layer, which was in turn crushed in. For weeks and
months the work went on ; in fact, it was never finished.
By night acetylene flares were lighted, and the steam
rollers went on with their interminable little journeys
up and down, up and down. We had to make a Ports-
mouth road fifty miles long, and do it under active
service conditions, with the submarine doing its worst.
By the middle of 1917 the road was made and perfected,
but we could never call it finished. It had to be looked
after like an ailing infant. The heavy lorry convoys
that ground and thudded along it, up and down the
steepest gradients and in extremes of weather,
would have pulled anything to pieces except solid
granite. The suction of their tyres is enormous. We
patted the road, watered it, smoothed it and dusted
it. On certain sections horses were forbidden to go at
more than a walk. The slightest pot-hole was marked
down and instantly filled in. At every suitable spot
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MUD AND MALARIA
all along it big, neatly-painted signs, in English and
Greek, were put up bearing the legend, ''All lorries,
limbers and country carts to use side-ttacks in dry
weather," and other warning indications. We had made
the road at last, and did not intend to let it be whittled
away by any carelessness. When King Alexander of
Greece visited the British front early in 1918 he mar-
velled to see such a highway. On the way back he an-
nounced that he was going to drive the car himself;
he did not intend to miss such an opportunity. A
despatch rider on a motor-cycle was sent ahead to give
the word and clear the way, but the young King caught
him up before long and sailed ahead on the first perfect,
first-class motoring road to be constructed anywhere
in the Near East. On the long '' straight " down from
Guvesne he touched 63 miles an hour.
What was done on the Seres Road was done, in vary-
ing degrees, all over the wide area covered by our opera-
tions. In the immediate region of Salonica, other first-
class roads had to be made, notably those serving the
great hospital regions of Kalamaria and Hortiach. We
reconstructed the main Naresh road leading up to Janes,
the Corps Headquarters for the Doiran Front, and the
great task we had to undertake through the pass from
Bralo on to Itea is mentioned in a later chapter. The
number of secondary and third rate roads that had to
be constructed was legion. There were none when we
went there, and when we had finished they laced the
country in all directions. From first to last we took
over, constructed and kept in repair 430 kilometres
(270 miles) of metalled roads and made 280 kilometres
(175 miles) of secondary roads and tracks, with all the
attendant work of ditching and draining. The value of
our road-making experience was immense when the
break-through came and we had to advance over the
181
SALONICA AND AFTER
usual Balkan conditions of spongy tracks masquerad-
ing as roads. Our three years of hard experience in our
own territory enabled us to have the proper men and
materials on the spot almost immediately, who kept
the communications patched up so that the men going
forward could be munitioned and fed.
An immense amount of w^ork of an analogous descrip-
tion was done in improving the port accommodation.
When we first came to Salonica our ships had to lie
off the quays for days on end because there were next
to no facilities for unloading. Of the 3,700 feet of quay
accommodation the British only had 1,300 feet allotted
to them. Munitions, until they were unloaded, might
as well still be in England. We had to build piers, con-
nect them up with railways, and improve existing
facilities in a hundred ways. Our 1,300 feet were far
less than were required for troops and hospital ships.
For everything additional to these, which means every
ton of material brought from home, we had to provide
our own resources for off-loading. For these reasons
an immense amount of construction and organisation
had to be undertaken at the port. Another difficulty
we encountered was the question of water supply, and
to make provision for our many hospitals and camps
of all kinds we had, amongst many other kinds of work
devoted to this end, to bore 70 deep artesian wells, each
of which was provided with a pumping engine.
On our roads we had running over two thousand heavy
lorries, and many hundreds of motor ambulances, motor
cars, light vans and motor-cycles, not to mention the
ubiquitous mule limbers. All this enormous organisa-
tion of motor transport was the life blood of the Army.
Imagine two thousand three-ton lorries standing in a
line ; how much they represent in work to be done, not
only by them but on them. All these, and the rest of
182
MUD AND MALARIA
the teeming vehicles, had to be kept in good order, and
the workshops that did the work had to be kept con-
stantly supplied with spare parts. "Spare parts"
b/ecame one of the chief bogies. These all had to come
from England. At the Base Motor Transport Depot,
which was the cupboard for all the Army, 30,000 separ-
ate items had to be kept, and any separate item might
run into thousands. Wear and tear was enormously
high. If the submarines had a successful spell, and
stocks ran low ; or if London was slow in sending out
the right supplies, then there were difficulties and
trouble. Salonica was not our base, but England.
Everything — whether spare parts or bully beef — had to
run the perilous gauntlet of the submarine. We could
buy nothing in the country, either to feed, clothe or
equip us.
In three years, then, we transformed Macedonia, and
when the time for the final offensive came, there were
no lack of communications to support the troops of the
various armies based on them. In addition to road-
making we did a great deal of railway construction,
chiefly of light Decauville lines, and communications
with Stavros and our right flank were much improved
by a Decauville line built along the Langaza Valley.
Up to 1917 the sea route to Stavros had always been
used, but the submarines began to make it too difficult.
And in 1917 we opened a standard gauge line some
fifteen miles long which, running from Salamanli on the
line up to Doiran, to the dumps at Guvesne, saved all
lorry transport over the first 25 kilometres of the Seres
Road and enabled us to have our distribution point for
motor transport by so much nearer the front line.
These are a few of the things the British did in order
to combat the great enemy Mud.
But the Malaria was even worse. Mud does not kill
188
SALONICA AND AFTER
or disable people, and if physical conditions are bad,
it is wonderful how much the human will can do to
overcome them. But Malaria struck our men down like
a scythe cutting grass, and there is no argument against
a state of things by which an infantryman feels seedy
in the morning and by afternoon is lying on his back in
a high delirium.
The summer of 1916, as has already been mentioned,
was particularly fierce in its heat. There is no need for
the summer to be more than usually hot for the malaria
mosquito to do its worst, but undoubtedly this factor
contributed considerably to the wave of sickness that
passed over the Army. Under the severe conditions
imposed on them by month after month of blazing heat,
the men were used up and of low vitality. In every
battalion men went down by the hundred, and there
were several cases of one or two officers and two or
three score men only being left out of a whole battalion
up to full strength. In a fortnight the South Notts
Hussars were reduced to 45 officers and other ranks
and never went into action at all in Macedonia, though
they saw plenty later in Palestine. And one infantry
battalion was reduced to one officer and 19 men. The
difficulties of evacuating this flood of sick men, a large
proportion of whom were extremely ill and helpless as
babies, were extreme. Most of them fell ill when they
were far from convenient means of transport, and had
to be carried two at a time in cacolets on the back of a
mule, or had to be dragged along in a travois, a sort of
litter made of canvas stretched between two shafts
which trail on the ground behind a mule; or carried
on a litter suspended between two mules. The person-
nel of the Field Ambulances were worked to death at
this difficult and exhausting work. The sudden out-
break overwhelmed the medical services, which were
184
MUD AND MALARIA
not then organised up to the point of dealing with
the startling problem of a fit army suddenly turning
into a sick one. Again the Seres Road, which from
right and left on the Struma, received the main flood
of patients, was still largely in its primitive state, and
the men had very exhausting journeys down to the Base.
Down in Salonica it was a common sight in the after-
noon to see a long convoy of motor ambulances, dozens
of them in line, and each of them holding four or more
patients, passing along the main street out to the big
general hospitals grouped together at Kalamaria. As
they rolled silently along through the busy, hot streets,
one saw from behind each ambulance the feet of the
four recumbent men within. And to see the long con-
voys day after day, never failing, gave a dolorous im-
pression of the ravages caused in the Army by the bite
of the tiny creature v/ith the spotted wings known as
the anopheles mosquito ; an impression of strong men
falling right and left as if struck by a plague — which
in a sense is what it was.
In that summer we had 11,500 hospital beds avail-
able in Salonica. But the admissions to hospital for
malaria alone were a few hundreds only short of thirty
thousand. Thirty thousand ! and the great proportion
of these men from the front line ! This gives an idea
of what the Army, installed in a barren and inhospit-
able country, suffered from the evil attentions of a tiny
insect; a little brute which does not anger or instinc-
tively disgust you, as does a fly, nor make you feel
creepy (if you are built that way) as does a spider,
but which has the power suddenly to make populous
camps deserted ; to set hundreds of motor ambulances
rolling ceaselessly up and down, and to turn the tented
field of a great hospital into a place of overwork and
wholesale sickness, where doctors slave the clock round
185
SALONICA AND AFTER
and nurses are run off their legs. It is absurd, but it is
so. Man and the mosquito are made that way.
As the generous establishment of hospitals was in-
sufficient to deal with all the malarial cases under
treatment, and the fresh ones which constantly came
rolling in, patients were sent off to Malta by hospital
ship. Some twenty thousand were dealt with in this
way during 1916, and some of those who were more or
less themselves again felt, as they sailed over the blue
sea away from Salonica (but not when they were sailing
back) that malaria had its compensations. But the un-
restricted submarine warfare of 1917, in which the
Germans showed themselves base enough to attack
hospital ships, put a stop to all this. As a consequence
more and more hospitals were brought to Salonica, and
soon the great medical settlement of Kalamaria, where
the big hospitals gathered together near the sea,
formed a large-sized town, was rivalled by the
new settlement which sprung up on the lower
slopes leading up to Hortiach. And all this tre-
mendous expenditure of time and trouble and work
of organisation, of planning and replanning ; of big new
convalescent camps to take on where the hospitals left
off; of a thousand and one arrangements, military,
medical and naval, was negative. It did nothing to
help us to win the war, but was one of the things that
had to be done to prevent us losing it. Thirty thousand
of our men — including some of the best infantry in all
the British Armies — were out of action during the first
summer without having a wound amongst them ! There
are some things which certainly cannot be foreseen.
And 1916 was by no means the end of our troubles
from malaria. It was only the insignificant beginning.
The problem was tackled most energetically and the
medical authorities initiated preventive measures on a
186
MUD AND MALARIA
very large scale in the way of oiling and draining stag-
nant waters, cutting down and burning great tracts of
brushwood, making sluggish streams flow swiftly. The
healthy men were protected in every way possible —
mosquito-proof huts, gloves, head nets and nasty oint-
ments; and the men already infected treated with all
the medical skill which a close acquaintance with the
disease on a large scale had given us. But the chief
difficulty about dealing with malaria on such a scale
is that the patient is subject to frequent relapses. Again,
each fresh summer gave us, in spite of all the hard
work and devotion displayed, many new patients in
addition to those who were constantly going sick as a
result of their infection one or two summers previously.
And this explains why, in spite of our experience and
improved methods, the total admissions for malaria
rose with each summer; why the thirty thousand of
1916 had become sixty-three thousand in 1917 and
sixty-seven thousand (in a much-depleted Army) in
1918. By the summer of the latter year the Salonica
Army was full of listless, anaemic, unhappy, sallow men
w^hose lives were a physical burden to them and a
material burden to the Army; who circulated back-
wards and forwards between hospital and convalescent
camps, passing only an occasional few days at work
with their units, and then being sent away to do the
round of hospital and "con. camp" again. And the
admissions to hospital did not take into account the
great number of men who had constant relapses with-
out declaring them. Practically everybody in the Army
had malaria.
In 1916 Sir Ronald Ross, perhaps the world's fore-
most malarial expert, came out to Salonica to look
round. After doing so he said : " You'll have a good
deal of malaria this year, and a good deal more the
187
SALONICA AND AFTER
following year." Late in 1917 he came out again
(being torpedoed on the way across the Ionian Sea from
Taranto) and saw to what a striking extent his pro-
phecy had been fulfilled. So it was that the famous
''Y" scheme was brought into operation, by which all
chronic malaria patients were sent home. It was the
subject of innumerable quips and jokes among the men,
but was all the same the echo of a very grim and
serious business. Under this scheme, in the ten months
of January to October, 1918, nearly thirty thousand
men were sent home. They were not the victims of
shrapnel or bayonet or high-explosive (although many
carried their wound stripes also), but none the less they
were men broken in the wars. And our country should
not be allowed to ignore or forget the fact. In his
despatch dated December 1st, 1918, General Milne made
this point. In concluding with an expression of his high
appreciation of all ranks of the Army he said, ''the
majority of them will return to their homes with con-
stitutions shattered by a prolonged stay in this malarial
and inhospitable country."
Mud and malaria ! We have devoted just one chapter
to them. But they really loom much larger than that
in the story of the B.S.F.
188
CHAPTER XV.
Home on Leave.
There came a wonderful morning when I stood on the
platform at the Orient Station waiting to step on the
leave train. It seemed far too good to be true. I had
been for twenty-seven months in and around Salonica —
and it seemed at least twice as long. And my complete
joy and satisfaction were tempered by only one regret —
that so many people who had been out longer, and who
deserved this wonderful morning far more, must be left
behind to "carry on" with all prospect of leave appar-
ently still as remote as ever.
This question of leave was one of the chief trials of
the Salonica Army, especially in the later stages of
the campaign. The will to do it was there, but there
were many difficulties in the way. Transport, of
course, was one of the greatest of these. Leave parties
were organised at a fairly early stage, but the outbreak
of the ruthless submarine war of 1917 almost at once
made the regular transport of large bodies of troops by
sea an extremely difficult and dangerous matter. The
submarine problem in the Mediterranean was always a
critical one, largely so because of the impossibility of
obtaining a united command on sea. All the arguments
which were finally successful in vesting the supreme
military power in the hands of Marshal Foch applied
with at least equal force to the absolute co-ordination
of naval operations in the Mediterranean, ^and few
people would deny that everything pointed to the ad-
visability of putting the directing power in the hands
of the British Navy — at any rate, as far as the sub-
189
SALONICA AND AFTER
marine question is concerned. But alas ! many inter-
national prejudices and difficulties stood in the way
of its realisation. What we did on land our Allies would
not do on the sea.
The help given to German submarines in the Mgean
Sea and the Archipelago — an ideal region, with its deep
waters and innumerable islands, for submarine work —
was one of our chief grievances against Greece under
Constantine. But even with this aid to the Germans
removed, the passage round Greece to Italy remained
perilous and costly in the extreme. What use to send
war-worn troops on leave if there was a high chance
of them all perishing en route ? As a consequence of
this eternal menace the overland route was, late in 1917,
finally set going. After many delays the railway
between Salonica and Athens was completed in June,
1916, but it was not until the autumn of 1917 that it
could be used for traffic. By means of this railway
troops could be taken down to Bralo, fwo-thirds of the
way to Athens, and from there carried 53 kilometres by
road to Itea on the Gulf of Corinth, from whence the
sea journey to Italy was very short, and splendidly
protected by the great Otranto Barrage which, in face
of enormous difficulties of many kinds, the British Navy
put down and maintained. In theory this seemed per-
fect and the granting of leave a comparatively easy
matter. But in practice it was otherwise. Rolling
stock was short, and the single line railway, which runs
up and down extraordinary gradients, was only capable
of handling a limited amount of tl-affic. In wet weather
landslips were always taking place, which blocked the
line for anything up to a week or more. The Greek
Army needed the railway for the new task ahead of it.
And added to all this, and many other things, the
French had first call on the railway for their own leave
190
HOME ON LEAVE
troops, and exercised it. But once all this was disposed
of, similar difficulties began in Italy. There again
transport was limited — and very costly to us — and coal
was short. Owing, again, to the submarine, the main
line through Italy and France became more and more
necessary to our many enterprises in the East, Salonica
being only one of them. And the disastrous events on
the Italian Front in November, 1917, closed the railway
for a long period to any such pleasant function as con-
veying leave parties. Moreover, the organization on
this line of communication was bad. Then in 1918 the
available transport was largely taken up by the men
going home on the " Y " scheme. These were some,
but by no means all, of the reasons which made leave
from Salonica an extremely difficult problem ; so that
although the B.S.F. authorities realised as well as any-
body the hardship of men being away from home in a
trying climate for three years and more, they were
powerless to alter the situation. All the same, it was
difficult to understand why, after eighteen months in
Macedonia, French and Italian troops should go home in
British ships while our own men were left behind. But
that has so often been the British part in the war — to
stand aside and concede to others what we wanted our-
selves. No doubt those who ruled our destinies at home
understood why. But it was a mystery to Tommy in
Macedonia.
However, I thought only vaguely of all those things
as I stepped in the train on that happy morning.
Friends were there to see friends off. Ours was a mixed
trainload ; a handful of British officers, a few hundred
men, and some six hundred Bulgar prisoners of the
fifteen himdred captured by the Greeks not long before
at Skra di Legen near the Vardar, the first action of the
new Greek Army on a considerable scale.
191
SALONICA AND AFTER
How many of us will remember in after years the
happy sensations of being actually in the leave train to
Bralo ! We were moving, and soon the incredible sight
appeared of Salonica disappearing — if one may put it
so. It was my second time in a railway train for well
over two years, and I felt like an excited youngster.
The carriages were dirty, but we were a merry party.
Food packages were undone and a wizard did wonderful
things with a Primus stove. I had obtained permission
to call in Rome and Paris and thus, travelling by rapide,
was free of the mingled horrors and amusements of the
long, long trip by troop train through Italy and France.
But the others had prepared for this dreadful journey,
and had brought extraordinary outfits so that they
might live and eat and wash and be warm on the road.
What tales will be told of those days and nights in the
leave trains. The officers may find it jolly enough in
retrospect (although even that is not likely). But the
men had such a thoroughly uncomfortable time in their
cattle trucks that many of them on returning to
Salonica swore that they would never go on leave again
even in the unlikely event of it being offered to them.
At Ekaterina, at the foot of mighty Olympus, the
Y.M.C.A. provided us with an excellent tea — one detail
of its many good works in the B.S.F. Then through
the famed and magnificent Vale of Tempe — the wonder-
ful gorge cutting between Mounts Olympus and Ossa —
surely one of the finest bits of scenery in all Europe,
with the river running through the majestic limestone
cliffs. Then across the wide plain of Thessaly, whose
corn Constantine relied on to hold out indefinitely, and
so at night to Larissa, where the E.F.C. provided us
with an excellent dinner. Life was running on oiled
wheels, but although some of us slept extremely badly
in the cramped space (we were five, which is a fatal
192
HOME ON LEAVE
number) the wonderful scenery when morning dawned
soon made us forget. We washed, hanging out of the
window, in canvas buckets attached to the door handle
and laughed like schoolboys at everything we did and
saw; and then crawled, jogged, and crawled along a
giddy shelf cut along the side of a mountain ridge which
opened out the most impressive prospect of mountain,
plain and sea, looking over somewhere towards Thermo-
pylae. French engineers constructed the line, and a
striking job it is. And so to Bralo station, near where
was situated our first rest camp.
The big rest camp was but one small detail of the
organization of the new leave service by the overland
route, which included hospitals, R.T.O.'s in abundance,
M.T. Companies with their lorries, canteens, and the
multitudinous things that go to the making of rest
camps on a large scale. We only had to stay one night
at Bralo, and next day started off in motor lorries on
the wonderful ride through the mountain pass to Itea.
It is possible that before the war some Europeans, as
we understand the word, had made this journey, but I
should think they were very few. The pass cuts right
through the Parnassus Range, and at the summit the
road reaches 2,900 feet. And here in one of the wildest
and most isolated valleys in Europe we constructed a
wonderful broad highway to take heavy lorry traffic.
The major portion of the work fell to us. The French
constructed a smaller portion on the further side of
the Pass and on to Itea, but in this they were very
much aided by the fact that for twelve miles there was
quite a good road running through a valley filled with
one of the largest olive groves in the world, and this
was kept in pretty good condition by the local inhabi-
tants for their own purposes.
Up, up we climbed — twenty-five lorries in line;
193 o
SALONICA AND AFTER
one or two officers on each seat next the driver and the
bodies of the vehicles filled with cheerful soldiers all
bubbling over with the idea that they were really well-
started on the leave journey. We were all tourists;
having a good time, and without a care in the world.
And the dust ! It was incredible. In half-an-hour we
could beat it from us in clouds. But what matter?
We would have gone through fire and water. And so
on, through a wonderful mountain panorama to the
siunmit, and then down, down, with the road twisting
round and about into fantastic hairpin comers, until
suddenly we saw shining far away the blue waters of
the Gulf of Corinth and no Greeks under Xenophon
were more delighted to see the sea than we were. On
down to ancient Amphissa, prettily situated near the
beginning of the vast olive grove. Amphissa, though
not really much to talk about, had at first sight quite
an air of a pleasantly civilized little country town, de-
lightful to see, and standing on a httle balcony as we
passed was — veritably — a really beautiful girl with dark
hair, who looked down with interest on the rumbling
convoy as it passed. After Salonica and Macedonia,
she seemed like a vision from heaven. Passing back
along the same route a month or two afterwards I looked
up at the balcony, but she was not there to greet us
this time.
The sun beat down fiercely on the road through the
olive grove and we created a dust storm as we passed.
The olive trees on either side, with their heavy burdens
of fruit, were caked with dust. And finally, struggling
up a hill, to the baked and dusty rest camp of Itea,
pitched on a bare rooky slope that seemed to be crying
aloud for water and greenery. But it was wonderfully
situated, with the blue waters of the Gulf of Corinth
below, the mountains of the Peloponnese far away, and
194
Macedonian "Ladies" brealc-
^ ing stones for road-making.
The Pass Road from
Bralo down to Itea.
Photo : Cpl. J. G. Grew.
HOME ON LEAVE
rising close at hand, over the valley filled with its olive
grove, the great rounded bulk of Parnassus. And that
evening when we were sitting outside the Camp Com-
mandant's hut drinking a cool drink and a large moon
came sailing up over the crest of Parnassus and, peep-
ing down over the valley, bathed us all in its light, it
would have been impossible to imagine a fairer scene.
Bralo rest camp was on a plain just north of Par-
nassus and Itea rest camp on the slopes of a valley
just to the south of it, but we had to go round
some forty miles to get from one to the other. The
organization of a rest camp in Greece was by no means
such an easy matter as in Italy or France. But, given
the circumstances, they were both excellently done.
The reading or lounge room attached to the mess at
each place was a sort of clearing house for Macedonia.
Here one met every possible variety of men in the
Army, and those who were in a position to study them
for any length of time together must have had a fairly
good idea of what was going on. Generals, experts,
drafts, new flying officers, occasional civilians on special
missions, the chronic malaria patients going home under
the " Y " scheme, reinforcements (if any) — all these
passed up or down. The rest camps were the pulse of
what was doing in Macedonia. Here were heard many
theories and rumours — the spiritual food on which the
Army lives. And the difference in optimism between
those going and those returning was always to be re-
marked.
A few miles from Itea, far up a magnificent gorge
running into the flank of Parnassus, is the famous
Delphi, and what was in modem times only visited by
the archaeologist or an occasional leisurely and wealthy
tourist became a place of pilgrimage for many members
of our Army who were using the leave route. But only
195
SALONICA AND AFTER
the enthusiast went there, as it was a stiff pull on foot,
and transport was not easy to get. Fortunately the
excellent Camp Commandant was able to produce one
of the ubiquitous Fords which ran a few of us through
the olive grove and up the steep mountain road very
quickly. Fierce dogs chased us as we passed through
the Greek villages en route, and chubby babies — hun-
dreds of them — made noises at us. Unfortunately for
one's enjoyment of Delphi, my two companions were in
a hurry, but we examined with some care the remains
of the Temple of Apollo, where the Oracle — who was not
troubled by the irritating by-laws which were inflicted
on Bond Street crystal gazers — gave forth through the
priestess those cryptic and tremendous utterances which
so often decided for peace or war. We sat on the
marble steps of the exquisite open-air theatre, and
tested its marvellous acoustic properties; paced the
Stadium ; awakened the echoes in the great red gorge
through which runs the Castalian spring ; and inspected
the unique treasures of the museum ; a banal building.
Delphi is a wonderful and awe-inspiring place, hemmed
in by the towering mountains ; a place where the indi-
vidual feels dwarfed and overpowered by the majesty
of nature in this fastness of beetling crags and startling
echoes. One could quite understand the pilgrim,
whether King or citizen, being in a very receptive mood
long before the revelation of Apollo was repeated to him
in hexameter verse by the priests. The mise-en^schne
was perfect, and I should say that in its palmy days
Delphi was one of the most eflScient and flourishing
businesses ever known.
The Ford van rushed us back down the twisting
mountain road at a speed and a rotation that made my
hair stand up. Even the village dogs judged it well
to leave us well alone when we flashed past. I was
196
HOME ON LEAVE
sitting on the back, which was merely a wooden shelf,
and as we unwound the road behind us it looked like
a gigantic, writhing serpent, growing longer and longer ;
and the high crest of Parnassus frowned upon us more
and more overhanging and minatory as we dropped
down. Perhaps the Oracle — splendid Apollo himself —
was kindly keeping an eye on us. For no other reason
can I imagine why the Ford did not turn turtle twenty
times. Why motor cars travel like this I do not pretend
to know. I sometimes think that the whole race of
motor-car drivers is slightly mad.
We arrived in camp to hear that we must be up at
two in the morning, in order to embark at three o'clock
— a most ungentlemanly hour. Three o'clock saw a
crowd of us packing the tiny landing stages of the little
port of Itea — French and British and a big crowd of
ugly Senegalese. In the process of time we arrived on
board the S.S. Tymgad, a French ship of large size.
Most of us, forsaking the beauties of daybreak over the
picturesque Gulf, wisely went to our beds as soon as
we could find them. I was awakened by the uncanny
chatterings of the Senegalese, and found black faces
peering curiously through the deck window of my ex-
cellent cabin. (It is a wise thing to be a personal friend
of the A.M.L.O.) There was a full battalion of them
on board, and they crowded the whole space of the
promenade decks, lying down for most of the time and
constantly chattering like monkeys, in high-pitched
feminine voices. I was told by one of their officers that
they were all going to France as N.C.O.'s to take charge
of the new black army raised by General Nivelle. They
were not really very pleasant companions. " Bons
enfants," said the officer — but not very far removed
from savages. I would not trust them too far in a
lonely place. In fact I have a friend who in a sudden
197
SALONICA AND AFTER
night encounter with three of them on the Lembet Road
owed his hfe solely to his practical knowledge of jiu-
jitsu. He was suddenly butted in the chest by one of
them, but managed to preserve his balance, got his
knee to work rapidly on all three and bolted as hard as
he could, leaving one of them at least temporarily dis-
abled and howling.
We had a submarine scare, and put into a little
harbour near Corfu that evening, but proceeded after
a delay of a few hours. The captain was a gay and
pleasant man. " Don't worry," he laughed. " This is
a lucky ship. Nothing will ever happen to her." It
seemed rather like tempting Providence, but the
Tymgad came out of the war all right — thanks to the
Otranto barrage. And so to Taranto without further
incident, through the narrow mouth of the wonderful
harbour, and into the British rest camp — the great junc-
tion of everything and everybody that lay eastwards.
That evening I sat in a real express train, feeling like
a Prince en voyage. It was good to see the green of
Italy ; better still perhaps to walk into a modern hotel
at Rome and later splash in a huge bath. And so to
Paris — " that is if the trains will still be running through
when you get there." Well over two years before, when
I had last come through Paris, the war seemed to be
ours; nobody talked then about the possibility of
danger to the capital. And now with the war nearly
four years old, she was menaced as she had never been
before. " Big Bertha " was busy, air raids were ex-
pected nightly, and the enemy pocket on the Mame
grew deeper. . . . And yet Paris was very much her-
self, and her restaurants smiled a gay (and expensive)
welcome as only the restaurants of Paris know how
to do.
There came another wonderful morning when we
198
HOME ON LEAVE
stood on the dockside at Southampton. I sent off a
telegram. The thrill it gave one to hear that it would
arrive in London in two hours and not (with luck) in
two weeks I And then the homely South- Western train,
bless it, and the porters, with their red ties, just the
same. . . . The long, curving platform of Waterloo,
and, thank Heaven, somebody waiting on it. The click
of the clock on a taxi, and then the smooth, effortless
roll along London's level streets. No cobbles, no bump-
ing. No bullock wagons in the way ; no ancient Turk
or wrinkled Jewish patriarch wandering sleepily across
the road. Something seemed to go click in me too.
Was Macedonia a reality ? Had one ever been there,
or was it just a dream ? In any case it was a million
miles away.
190
CHAPTER XVI.
The Allied Operations.
Though during the long three-years campaign in the
Balkans there were many periods of enforced compara-
tive inactivity during which only the regular growhng
of the artillery and the work of the patrols and the
Allied aviators kept up the offensive spirit, there was
far more fighting in the aggregate than most people in
the outside world realised, and amongst them the
various Allies — Serbians, French, British, Italians, even
Russians, and, finally, the Greeks — laid down many
thousands of lives on the barren moimtains that mark
the frontiers of Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria.
The Allied move out of the " Birdcage " in the spring
and early summer months of 1916 to take up positions
along the Greek frontier where the enemy — Bulgars,
Germans, Austrians and Turks — had now entrenched
themselves on most formidable positions, was followed
by a long period during which change, re-arrange-
ment, marching and counter-marching seemed to go
on interminably. This was due to various causes; to
" bluff " on both sides; to a proposed Allied Offensive
along the Vardar, which had to be abandoned because
the Bulgars got in first with their own attack on the
left of the Allied line, against the Serbs ; and also be-
cause of the fact that at first, owing to a number of
reasons, British and French Divisions were mixed up
in rather higgledy-piggledy fashion. The troops, who
knew nothing of any of the reasons dictating these
200
THE ALLIED OPERATIONS
changes, found themselves committed to a good deal of
hard and exasperating marching and counter-marching
in exhausting heat which seemed to lead to nothing in
particular. Then the Italians who in September took
up a twenty-five mile line on the Krusha-Balkan sector,
between Lake Doiran and the Struma Valley, came as
another dividing wedge between the two wings of the
British front. It was not until towards the end of 1916
that the British finally settled down on the line running
from the Vardar to Doiran, round the elbow made by
the Krusha-Balkan range and so down the long Struma
Valley to the sea — a distance of about ninety miles.
This very extended front was held for two and a half
years. Along its whole length we were dominated by
enemy positions which were always markedly superior
in strength — and height — and as a rule immensely
superior. It was a crazy front, like the whole of the
Balkan front, and zig-zagged up and down steep hills,
in and out of ravines, ran along the tops of high ridges
and finally brought us up on the Struma with its odd
mixture of open and position warfare. To hold this
very long front, always against superior forces, we had
as a maximum four Divisions, much weakened by sick-
ness and casualties. The 10th Division, after its gallan-
try and hardships in the retreat down from the Bul-
garian frontier in 1915, took part in some stiff and
successful fighting in the Struma Valley in 1916, and
went to Palestine in September, 1917, there to win fresh
laurels. The 60th Division, which only arrived in the
Balkans in December, 1916, also went to Palestine in
June, 1917, and saw comparatively little service in the
Balkans, although it was to see plenty under General
AUenby later on and to play a big part in his victories.
At about the same time the 7th and 8th Mounted
Brigades also went to Palestine. The four Divisions
201
SALONICA AND AFTER
which are the most identified with the Balkan campaign
are the 22nd, 26th, 27th and 28th. Theirs was the task
for over two years of holding alone the long British
front from the Vardar to the sea, a disposition which
was not disturbed until the entry of the Greeks into
line in 1918, when we gave up the Struma Valley to the
newcomers and for the first time extended our line
westwards over the Vardar.
The outstanding feature of all the Allied fighting in
the Balkans is not that we were so long in bringing
about a decisive victory, but that we did as well as
we did, with so many circumstances against us, and
were able at least to hold our own until the day when
a decisive push could really be expected to bring about
such a situation as would materially help towards bring-
ing the war to an end. It is the enemy for whom the
impartial historian should reserve his reproaches. They
held all the cards in their hands, and ought to have
driven us into the sea — as they often boasted they
would — long before the day when we at last hurled
them from their mountain ranges. They were on in-
terior lines, and for them the Macedonian front was,
practically, as accessible as any other front. They could
send down men and munitions from Germany within
a few days. But we depended on the long and
hazardous sea route, and every man, shell or tin of
bully beef that made that leisurely journey had, so to
speak, a price on his or its head — a price that was often
paid, in spite of the vigilance of the Navy. The enemy
as a rule considerably outnumbered us. His artillery,
direct from Essen, was always superior in weight. And
yet never once, with the possible exception of the Bulgar
summer offensive of 1916, was there a serious attempt
to thrust us out of Macedonia, although there were
times when our lines were so thin, and so weakly sup-
202
THE ALLIED OPERATIONS
ported, that a full-dress offensive, if backed by the
lavish German support so often displayed elsewhere,
must almost certainly have broken us. That the enemy
forces never really tried to put their boasts into execu-
tion must be ascribed largely to the fact that the Bul-
gars had obtained, at relatively small cost, most of
what they exi)ected to get out of the war, and were un-
willing to pay on a rapidly ascending scale the price
necessary for further successes. They knew the quality
of the Allies, and realised that on the defensive we
should exact a bitter price. And why should the
Bulgars (many of them argued) run up scores of thou-
sands of casualties in striving for Salonica, knowing
that even if they reached it the Kaiser would see that
after the victory it remained in the hands of his brother-
in-law Const antine ? Again, the purpose of the enemy
was almost entirely served so long as they kept us from
severing the communications with Turkey and the East,
and this, following the treachery to Roumania and the
Russian collapse, was an easy matter to ensure. Fur-
ther, there seemed for a long period an excellent chance
of the intrigues of King Constantine accomplishing at
least half the work, and his final elimination was un-
doubtedly a big set-back for the enemy.
But with all these arguments in favour of the enemy
maintaining his defensive role, there can be little doubt
that it would have paid him handsomely to have forced
a decision on the Balkan front. With Russia in an-
archy, Roumania enslaved, and Salonica, Greece, and,
in fact, the whole of the Balkans in his hands, the
German triumph in Eastern Europe would have been
complete. Piraeus, the port of Athens, as well as Salon-
ica, would have been a submarine base, and what we
accomplished in the way of submarine trapping across
the narrow waters of the Adriatic would have been an
203
SALONICA AND AFTER
infinitely more difficult matter in the deep and broken
waters of the Mgean, Our communications with Egypt
and the East generally would have been infinitely more
difficult to maintain. The Greek Army would have
belonged to the Kaiser, and not to Venizelos and the
Allies. And the moral effect of an Allied evacuation of
Salonica — whether orderly or hurried — would have
been immense. It might not have won the war for
the enemy, but it would have immensely lengthened it
for us, and, as we now see, would have deprived us of
that " jumping-off place " for final victory which the
Balkan front was destined to become. Half the strength
expended on the Italian front in November, 1917, or
a quarter of that expended on the Western front in the
spring of 1918 must have given the enemy complete
victory in the Balkans. Had he obtained this there
would have been no back door remaining for us to
prize open, and so break up the Unholy Alliance. He
could have strengthened the Turks in Palestine and
Mesopotamia; the Itahan front would have remained
in a condition of stalemate. Even if he had still shot
his bolt, and failed, in the West he could have held us
off for a long time so long as his Allies remained un-
broken. It was the props being knocked from under
him, as Mr. Lloyd George said, which brought the end
so precipitately, and the first prop to go, as we all
know, was the Balkan front. In other words, had
Salonica and Greece been captured by the enemy in
1917 or 1918, the war might easily have lasted for two
or three years longer, and even then might have ended
much less to the Allies' advantage. And if the chief
reason which prevailed on the enemy not to undertake
a large-scale Balkan offensive was the unwillingness of
the Bulgars to engage in an adventure which was boimd
to be very costly to them, then we can only rejoice
204
THE ALLIED OPERATIONS
that the Germans also laboured under the difficulties
which are common to most Alliances.
How often in the old days did we in Salonica argue
on the role of the Balkan front. Even those who were
serving on it often asked : " Is it worth while? What
can we hope to do here with the forces we have, against
the positions that confront us ? As far as we are con-
cerned it is stalemate, and always will be." And how
often did one argue stoutly something in this wise :
" One day the enemy ring will crack. We shall break
through in the West, let us say. Then Germany's
Allies, seeing Germany definitely losing, will weaken
and think of making peace. The fact that we have a
force on hand in the Balkans, ready to push in another
segment of the weakening circle, will make all the
difference to our affairs in the West when the moment
comes. That is the role of the Balkan Armies : to hang
on patiently until the right moment. That is when we
shall make our presence felt, so that all our disappoint-
ments and our long waiting here will be more than
justified."
It was an argument which did not always convince.
But who could have foreseen how far it was to be from
the truth ; and not on the wrong side, but on the right
side. The break-through came not elsewhere but in the
Balkans itself, and the dramatic disintegration, ending
in final and grovelling collapse, came not so much
through Germany's Allies weakening because Germany
was beaten as Germany breaking because her Allies
were beaten. It was more than the most enthusiastic
and consistent " Balkanite " could have hoped for.
And a final word to round this off, by way of showing
that the writer does not hold an exaggerated view of
what was ultimately done in the Balkans, or of what
could have been done there earlier. The Allied offen-
205
SALONICA AND AFTER
sive in the Balkans succeeded just at the one moment
when it was pK)ssible for it to succeed. Given the
troops we had to dispose of, or perhaps with many
more, at no other time after the enemy had taken up
his mountain positions in 1916 could we have fought
through and finally crumpled up the Balkan Front.
The idea, for instance, of cutting through and severing
Turkey from Bulgaria was never practicable — once the
Germano-Bulgars had fortified themselves on the key
positions of Macedonia, and once the Russians had
collapsed and Roumania had been overrun. The great
body of troops necessary for such an operation simply
could not have been properly handled and supplied in
a country possessing so many disadvantages. More-
over, at any earlier period of the war, whatever advan-
tage we had gained by a successful Balkan offensive
could have been almost immediately nullified by Ger-
many's pwDwer to rush down reinforcements at a rate
immenselj^ superior to ours. We might (given we had
possessed the men) have captured — at a very* great
expenditure in lives — one set of mountain ranges. At
the end of it, with our losses heavy upon us, we should
have been confronted with another series of positions
just as strong, and with powerful, fresh enemy forces
to overcome our depleted forces. Throughout the war,
almost to its end, Germany was always strong enough
to wipe out any advantage we might have gained in
the Balkans, and at the very best we should have gained
a very barren and costly victory by capturing a few
barren mountains.*
* This latter point is somewhat modified by the \'iews expressed
by General Henrys, the distinguished Commander-in-Chief of the
French Arm6e d'Orient in a conversation I had with him in Salonica,
in February, 1919. *' Germany still had large forces within call, even
at the moment when we broke through in 1918," he said. ** There
was Mackensen in Roumania with 200,000 men. The reason he could
not get them down in time to heal the breach was because of the
206
THE ALLIED OPERATIONS
The successful offensive in the Balkans came just at
the one moment when we had fresh forces (the Greek
Army) and when Germany, owing to her failures on
the West, foimd it impossible to scrape up any help
for the Bulgars. We held on and held on — and finally
struck just at the right moment. One need claim no
more for the Balkan Army than this; that through
three years of disappointment and misconception it did
its job thoroughly by holding on, occasionally trying
the impossible, and that when its moment came it com-
pleted its job thoroughly by taking full advantage of
the occasion offered and opening the way to rapid and
final victory. In September, 1918, it was impossible to
put a limit to the length of the war. In October, 1918,
following the Balkan offensive, even the least optimistic
of us saw the great Colossus was really tottering, and
that a cessation of fighting by Christmas was not a wild
impossibility. It came in November.
To all this, the Home Critic might reply : " Yes, no
doubt there is something in all this, but why didn't we
go to Serbia's help sooner ? Then you might have done
something in your Balkans at a much earlier date."
The answer is that we did not possess the men. All our
surplus had been committed to the Dardanelles, and
by the time the expedition to Salonica had come into
question the Dardanelles was as definitely behind us as
the battle of Agincourt. It is true that if instead of
engaging originally in the Dardanelles campaign we
extraordinary rapidity with which the Serbs, once the breach was
made, exploited their success and forged ahead. As the German
troops arrived from Roumania they were pushed to right or left by
the advancing Serbs, and never succeeded in forming a front." But
the Germans and Austrians were by now shaken and hesitating
before our continued successes in France, and it is pretty certain
that they would have succeeded in doing in 1917 what they failed
to do in 1918. Which brings us back to the point that the Balkan
offensive succeeded just at the one moment ordained for it.
207
SALONICA AND AFTER
had sent our Divisions to Serbia, tlie war would have
gone much better for us. Bulgaria would almost cer-
tainly not have come in and Turkey would never have
been joined up to Germany. But this opens up an im-
mense vista which leads back at least as far as the
Treaty of Berlin, and perhaps we had better pursue it
no further. And though we were fighting for the Right
we cannot expect to have all the luck and all the wis-
dom on our side all the time.
And the Home Critic might say again : "Yes, no
doubt you are doing your best to make out a good
case. But what annoyed us at home was that on the
Salonica Front you only went in for fighting now and
again, whereas on the Western Front somebody was
fighting all the time. How was it you didn't fight
oftener .^" And the answer is that if the British Balkan
Army had fought for a whole fortnight on end as it
fought, on several occasions, two-day and three-day
battles at Doiran, it would have been wiped out entirely.
And then, Mr. Home Critic, you would have had to send
out another army.
The fighting in the Balkans may be divided into four
main phases: —
(1) The Franco-British expedition to save Serbia late
in 1915, which failed in its object because our troops
were too few and arrived too late, so that the Serbs
were driven down into Albania before General Sarrail
could effect a junction with them far away up the Var-
dar. The Allied Forces had to fall back on Salonica
after fighting heavy actions with far superior forces
of Bulgars, but the enemy did not try to push his ad-
vantage further and remained on or near the Greek
Frontier.
(2) The fighting in the summer and autumn of 1916.
208
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THE ALLIED OPERATIONS
This began with French and British attacks in the
region of Doiran, with the idea of improving our posi-
tions there in order to facilitate a proposed Allied ad-
vance up the Vardar. The French captured Tortue
Hill and the British, Horseshoe Hill. But these opera-
tions had to be abandoned because of a strong Bulgar
thrust which in August was delivered against the Serbs
on our left wing. This attack, generally called the
Battle of Ostrovo, was finally, and with difficulty, held
up. In September a strong Franco-Serbian counter-
offensive, aided by the Italians and Russians, was
started, and after weeks of very bitter fighting, par-
ticularly on the part of the Serbs, Monastir was cap-
tured on November 19th, four years to the day after
the Serbs captured it from the Turks in 1912. This
success could not be pushed thoroughly home owing
to the fatigue and losses of all the Allied troops. To
aid in the Monastir operations, the British carried out
a number of major actions; first the attack on the
Mackukovo lines near the Vardar on September 11th,
followed by the very successful fighting on the Strimia
plain in late September and October when, in several
battles, notably those of Bala, Zir, Barakli-Djuma and
Jenikeui, very heavy losses were inflicted on the enemy
at moderate cost to ourselves.
(3) The Allied offensive of 1917 which opened too
^arly, and on the left, where the French were engaged
in the region of Monastir and Lake Presba, was ham-
pered by very bad weather in extremely difficult coun-
try. In April and May the British attacked twice the
very formidable positions of ."P" Ridge and ^Petit
Couronne near Doiran and suffered very heavy losses
without achieving any really useful result. The various
Allied attacks of this year, for various reasons, lacked
cohesion, just as they had done in France.
209 P
SALONICA AND AFTER
(4) The fighting of 1918. Raids by the British on a
large scale at Doiran and on the Struma in April and
May. Successful action in May by the Greeks against
the positions of Skra di Legen to the west of the Vardar,
in which 1500 prisoners were taken. In August the
British 27th Division, which had moved from the Struma
to the west of the Vardar, engaged in continuous raids
and attacks which had the effect of completely deceiving
the enemy as to our intentions. September 15th saw
the opening of the big offensive by the French and Serbs
in the Sokol-Vetrenik sector, which residted in an im-
mediate break-through at a point weakly held by the
enemy. To enable the success to be exploited the
British, in liaison with the Greeks, carried out strong
holding attacks against the formidable positions east
and west of Doiran, where they were faced by a heavy
concentration of picked troops and artillery on practi-
cally impregnable positions. A splendidly timed, co-
hesive, general action all along the line, which resulted
in complete Bulgar defeat and capitulation, and the
signing of the Armistice with Bulgaria on September
29th.
This compressed recital of the fighting activities of
the Allied Armies during three long years gives no idea
of their gallant work, their numerous smaller engage-
ments, and their many trials and disappointments dur-
ing the course of the campaign. In 1916 the Allied
Governments had by no means settled down as to what
the Balkan Armies were to be allowed to attempt.
Much was hoped for by the entry of Roumania, which
promised to hold our Balkan enemies between a vice,
but the enemy, just as desirous as we were of impress-
ing Roumania with the idea of who were stronger in
the Balkans, opened on August 18th a powerful sur-
prise attack against the Serbs to the east of Lake Os-
210
THE ALLIED OPERATIONS
trovo. The situation was complicated by the fact that
between the Serbs and the enemy were the Greek fron-
tier guards who allowed, and even aided, the first enemy
columns to cross the frontier. The immediate driving
in of the Serbian outposts at Fiorina was followed by
an attack in force of some 12,000 Bulgars, and after
several days' heavy fighting Lq fierce heat on stony,
barren mountains the position seemed critical. But the
Serbians, fighting with their customary fierceness and
tenacity, and although very much outnumbered, gave
ground only at the price of heavy casualties inflicted on
the enemy. Serbian reinforcements were quickly com-
ing into action, and after nearly a week's steady ad-
vance the Bulgarian push was definitely stayed, though
not until the Serbs were driven right on to Lake Os-
trovo. The Battle of Ostrovo culminated in five separ-
ate Bulgar attacks in one day on the hardened Serbian
line, all of which were smashed, the Bulgars suffering
very heavy casualties.
The story of the Allied reaction when, very shortly
afterwards, the enemy was driven back over all the
ground he had taken and finally out of and beyond Mon-
astir, is a magnificent record of tenacious attack amid
physical conditions which cannot possibly be apprecia-
ted by those who have never seen the Balkan front.
It was an offensive on the grand scale, with nearly the
whole of the French forces in Macedonia joined to the
First and Third Serbian Armies, with very useful par-
ticipation from the Italians and Russians, and with
general liveliness on our part in order to keep the
enemy thoroughly engaged. The counter-offensive
began towards the middle of September, and the Serbs
went for their hereditary enemies like furies, throwing
them first of all off the steep Gornichevo Pass, which
winds up and up on the main Monastir Road. The
211
SALONICA AND AFTER
Serbs, for the most part, were fighting on the right of
the offensive, amid the high tumbled mountains, and
the French on the broad plain that runs from near
Lake Ostrovo up to Monastir. On September 17th the
French and Russians captured Fiorina, and two days
later the Serbs accomplished one of the finest feats of
the war in winning the highest crest of Kaimakchalan,
a mountain of over eight thousand feet. It was stark,
bitter hand to hand fighting up on that windy smnmit,
and nothing but a fierce mixture of bravery and hate
won it, for the Bulgars defended themselves like demons
and only a hundred of them were captured. The rest
were dead. After their first successes the French were
held up for weeks against the formidable, strongly-
organised Kenali lines running across the plain. It
was the amazing onward battling of the Serbs, fight-
ing for peak after peak, and winning them, which
caused the fall of Monastir by outflanking it, and the
French Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies under-
lined this point in his communique. But the Italians
and Russians, as well as the French and Serbs, had an
appreciable share in this notable success, which un-
fortunately could not be pushed further, in spite of
repeated Allied attacks. The enemy remained strongly
entrenched on the hills a few miles behind the town,
brought up strong German and Bulgar reinforcements,
and soon Monastir had to submit to continuous bom-
bardment.
The British attack on the Mackukovo lines, just to
the west of the Vardar, occurred on the night of Sep-
tember 13th-14th, after a three days' artillery prepara-
tion. The attack was intended purely as a holding
attack so as to enable our Allies to the west of the line
to progress further in their push for Monastir — the kind
of part which it was our fate to play throughout the cam-
212
^
THE ALLIED OPERATIONS
paign. The attack was carried out by the 12th Lanca-
shire Fusihers and the 14th Liverpools, supported by the
%th East Lancashires and 11th Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
It was our biggest action of this nature so far in
Macedonia, and the strong enemy lines, held by Ger-
man troops, were gallantly carried, over 200 Germans
being killed by bomb and bayonet. Our men
beat off several counter attacks during the night, but
next day they came under the heavy concentrated fire
of the Guevgheli group of enemy batteries, suffering
severely, and were brought back to avoid further losses.
Shortly afterwards began our extensive operations
on the Struma, equally intended to keep the eastern
half of the enemy line busy so that no troops could be
withdrawn for the reinforcement of the Monastir sec-
tor. These operations were carried out in the last days
of September and on throughout October. At this time
the Bulgars still held in force all the villages to the
north of the Struma, and we held the Orljak bridge-
head, also to the north of it. The operations included
the capture of Karadjakeui-Zir and Karadjakeui-Bala
(always referred to as Zir and Bala) and the big village
of Jenikeui. On the last day of October we carried
out attacks on a forty or fifty mile front in the valley
beyond the river, the chief objective being the strongly-
held village of Barakli Djuma. Throughout, these
Struma operations were uniformly successful, both in
holding strong Bulgar forces on that front, and in pun-
ishing the enemy wherever we found him. Artillery
and infantry co-operation were excellent, and occasion-
ally armoured cars were used. The biggest thrashing
administered to the enemy was in the battle of Bala-Zir-
Jenikeui, when over 1,500 Bulgar corpses were after-
wards buried. His total losses in this battle were at
least 5,000; and at the end of it the enemy was
213
SALONICA AND AFTER
thoroughly beaten. From that time onwards the
Bulgars never gave us an opportunity of meeting .them
in any great force on the plain (although we often
tempted them) but, with the exception of strong patrols,
stuck to such positions as could be absolutely smothered
by the artillery posted on the commanding mountains
in their hands.*
Following on the long lull in the 1916-17 winter,
during which period the menace of Constan tine's Army
occupied a considerable amount of Allied attention and
preparations, the Allied 1917 operations opened with a
French attack in March in the wild mountainous region
situated between the two big lakes of Presba and Och-
rida, away on the far left of the AUied line, in Albania.
They were doomed to failure because of the extremely
bad weather that broke out shortly after their com-
mencement, so that the country was hidden under a
heavy snowfall and the roads became impassable.
Another attack was made north of Monastir, but
although a certain measure of success was won, the
French could not maintain their hold on the chief
height, Hill 1248, overlooking the town, and Monastir
still remained under the domination of the enemy's
guns.
So far, since the enemy took up his 1916 positions,
* The units of the 10th, 27th, and 28th Divisions engaged in these
extensive operations, and in later fighting on the Struma, included
the 2nd Gloucesters, 2nd Camerons, 1st Royal Scots, 1st A. and S.
Highlanders, 1st, 6th and 7th Royal Munster Fusiliers, 6th
and 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 1st and 6th Royal Irish Rifles, 5th
Connaught Rangers, 1st and 6th Leinster Regiment, 5th and 6th
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, 2nd, 5th and 6th Royal Irish Fusiliers,
2nd Royal Lanes. Regiment, 2nd East Yorks, Ist York and
Lancaster Regiment, 1st K.O.Y.L.I., 1st SufiEolks, 2nd Cheshires,
Ist Welsh Regiment, 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers, 2nd K.S.L.I.,
?rd K.R.R.C., 4th Rifle Brigade, 4th K.R.R.C., 7th Mounted
Brigade (S. Notts Hussars, Sherwood Rangers Yeo., Derby Yeo.),
18th Royal Highlanders (Scottish Horse), 10th Hampshire Regiment,
10th Camerons, 2nd The Buffs, and 8rd Royal Fusiliers.
214
THE ALLIED OPERATIONS
he had initiated one successful *'push" against the Serbs,
which had been rapidly turned into a signal defeat
from the combined French, Serbian, Italian and Russian
forces, resulting in the fall of Monastir. On the Struma
plain he had met the British in three or four encounters,
and had been thoroughly beaten on each occasion. The
French had made two further attempts to dislodge him
from his mountain strongholds on the western wing
and had failed. It was now the turn of the British to
attack him in the very centre and hinge of all his moun-
tain line, an operation which opened under the un-
favourable auspices of lack of complete understanding
between the Allied commands. We come to one of the
greatest moments in the history of the British cam-
paign in the Balkans ; the first attacks on those formid-
able defences known as the "Pip" Ridge and Petit
Couronn^.
S15
CHAPTER XVII.
DOIRAN.
The Doiran Sector, where our trenches ran across the
Serbian-Greek frontier, was the one which pre-eminently
gave the lie to the childish idea which existed at one
time that the British Army in the Balkans did not fight.
This line of trenches, running through very hilly ground
from near Doiran Lake westwards towards the Vardar,
was always a very uncomfortable region, and at times
a very inferno. The conditions here were in every way
comparable to trench warfare in France, save that they
were complicated by the extraordinarily difficult nature
of the ground. Trench mortars, "crumps," hand gren-
ades, trench raids, snipers, massed machine guns, barra-
ges, concrete dug-outs, and all the other devibies of
modem warfare played their usual parts. Counter
battery work was the order of the day, and round every
camp and every twisting, switchback road up which
our pack-transport came at night shell holes were to be
seen by the hundred. Our trenches were cut in the
rocky side of ravines and over the barren tops of swell-
ing hills, and at one point, at Horseshoe Hill, passed
over the lower slope of the same long hill, the famous
*'Pip" Ridge, whose higher undulations, or Pips, were
held by the enemy himself. Our position there was
much as if one lay precariously in the gutter of a roof
top while one's enemy lay on the apex of the roof
shooting downwards. For over two years we held on
to this particular position, and at one time — to con-
216
DOIRAN
tinue the metaphor — established ourselves a little way
up the roof tiles, a position which we never abandoned,
although what became for a time part of our trench line
was held afterwards only as advanced posts, owing to
the cost of maintaining them.
For weeks and months on end the same infantry man-
ning our trenches up in these hills would wake to the
same scene ; the tumble of brown stony hills stretching
for miles on either side ; with the two main Bulgar bas-
tions, Pip 2 and Grand Couronne, ever frowning down ;
with entrancing peeps down towards the ruined town
of Doiran and the big circular lake, reflecting the most
wonderful colours at early morning or at sunset; and
beyond the lake the 5,000 feet crests of the impressive
Belashitza Range, standing up like a purple wall. On
all the nearer hills, amid which the scene of the fighting
was set, there was not a single tree, hardly a green blade
of grass. Only in the ravines was there to be found
occasional scrub clothing the steep sides. And yet with
all their unvarying barrenness it was a magnificent pros-
pect amidst which our men lived for so long; with a
view that extended far beyond the shining ribbon of the
Vardar on the west, away to the mountains overlooking
Monastir; with the broad valley running eastwards
from the lake, bounded by the Belashitza and the
Krusha Balkan Hills and, behind, the flat plain as far
as Janesh, with the heights that enclose Salonica to be
seen on clear days. One forgot the absence of trees after
a time. The effect of light was so magical that there
was beauty and to spare, of a wUd untamed kind, even
for English eyes. In that little classic of the B.S.F.,
known as The Song of Tiadathay the author. Captain
Owen Butter, pays a tribute to the beauty of the scene
he so often saw from the trenches of the 7th Wiltshires
down near the Lake :
217
SALONICA AND AFTER
** Very lovely is Kyoto
In the days of cherry blossom ;
Very lovely is the splendour
Of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains;
Lovely are the coral islands
Strung like jade in the Pacific;
And the palm trees of Malaya,
Black against an orange sunset.
Lovely are the long white breakers
On the beach of Honolulu,
Even as the Thames Embankment
On a misty day in Autumn.
Gib. at dawn, Hong Kong at evening.
Lights of Rio, in the darkness,
And the Golden Gate of 'Frisco,
All of these are very lovely,
Yet I know a sight still fairer,
Doiran red and grey and yellow,
Clustered on the Serbian hillside.
Gleaming in the morning sunlight.
Ever gazing like Narcissus,
Down upon its own reflection
In the lake that laps its houses."
But one may at last have one's fill even of beauty,
especially when that beauty conceals within its fair
bosom the constant menace of sudden death, and when
the fortune of war forces one to gaze upon the same scene
of exile for one year, two years — ^nearly three years.
During nearly the whole period in Macedonia the 22nd
and 26th Divisions shared this front between them,
and from their trenches saw fair Nature's changes;
her wonderful, infinitely varied box o' tricks, during
three long baking summers and two winters. And
always Grand Couronn6 and the Pip Ridge looked down
on them, impregnable, barring the way. They knew
that some day they would have to try and take them,
and no infantryman on the Doiran front could con-
template that eventual prospect with a smile.
From the arid plain that spread behind our line, the
hills rose steeply in a formless jumble. Our lines were
planted well into this welter of stony heights \and
ravines, but ahead of us where the Bulgar was en-
218
DOIRAN
trenched the hills rose ever higher and higher. And
all this great expanse of treeless, tumbled earth, iai
which twenty hills looked exactly like twenty other
hills, and one depression exactly resembled another,
had to be mapped most exactly, and every feature had
to be named. The French had christened some of the
outstanding features before we came, but afterwards
we added scores of names to the map — The Hilt, The
Knot, The Blade, The Tassel, Sugar Loaf, The Tongue,
Dorset Ravine, Trout Back, Roach Back, Whale Back —
and very many more. The most striking feature in our
own front line was the long rounded bulk of Tortoise
Hill, whose name exactly suggests its shape. It was a
big feature in the landscape, and yet, from the Bulgar
heights beyond, it seemed one modest hump amongst
a hundred others. How safe they must always have
felt up there, on top of the roof. No wonder they
laughed during some of our attacks, and cried derisively
to our men as they toiled up the slopes towards them,
" Come on, Johnny, goddam you ! " (The Bulgar who
spoke American English was by no means a rare bird.)
From our own trenches running along the crest of
Tortoise Hill one looked inomediately across a great ex-
panse of ravine to where, some six or seven hundred
yards away over the gulf, ran the Bulgar trenches along
the summit of Petit Couronne, a steep hill of about the
same height as Tortoise Hill and the main bastion of
the Bulgar front line. This deep cleft which separated
the two strongholds was known as Jumeaux Ravine — a
name and place of evil memory, where many of our men
laid down their lives. Often after tlie heavy battles of
1917 our night patrols, scrambling in and out of the
rocky bed of the tiny stream that meandered along it,
would come across the remains or the smashed equip-
ment of some of our poor fellows. It was a grim place
219
SALONICA AND AFTER
to patrol in at any time, with the steep side of Petit
Couronne running sheer up to the enemy trenches some-
where above. But on the occasions when it was filled
with the flame and roar of high explosives, so that in
that confined space men were killed without even being
touched by the hail of jagged fragments of eight and
twelve inch shell, it must have been the gaping, roaring
mouth of Hell itself.
There was much else to be seen from the trenches on
Tortoise. To the right and left serpent ed our own
line ; down towards the lake and up over the crest of
Horseshoe. Ahead, looking over and beyond Petit
Couronne the ground rose in fold after fold cut across
bj^ innumerable ravines running in all directions until
at last the eye was arrested by two outstanding sum-
mits— on the right near the lake Grand Couronne, and a
little to the left of it (joined by the saddle known as the
Koh-i-noor), P. 2., the vital point of the Pip Ridge.
As mountains go, these two main Bulgar strongholds
were not enormous to look at. In the great panorama
stretched before one they were backed by high snow-
topped mountains which made the nearer heights look
exactly what they were ; rolling, rounded hills such as
you might find in Cumberland, but as bare of vegeta-
tion as the Downs of Sussex. The highest point of Pip
Ridge was somewhere about 2,200 feet, and Grand
Couronne was some two or three hundred feet less. It
needed more than one visit to the front, and more than
one study of that rolling panorama, for their full signi-
ficance to sink in. And then at last it began to be
plain that the two bald crests, with the tumble of
smaller hills leading to them, constituted, as one
General who had much to do with them said, " the
strongest natural fortress in Europe." I have seen
Messines Ridge, and Vimy, and Achi Baba, but they
220
DOIRAN
do not begin to compare with Doiran, although the
famous hill at the Dardanelles is a smaller edition of
Grand Couronne. All the way up to the crests the
ground in front makes a natural glacis. Each succeed-
ing ripple or height is dominated by the next above it.
The Grand Couronne, securely based on the lake, helps
the Pip Ridge, and from the Ridge overwhelming artil-
lery or machine-gun fire could be — and was — directed
to smother anything happening on the slopes of Grand
Couronne. Every detail in the whole position interlocks
with all the others, and running westwards from the
Pip Ridge down towards the lower ground, in the direc-
tion of the Vardar, were two spurs, Dolina and Little
Dolina, which diabolically completed Nature's perfect
scheme of defence and made any attempt to advance
up the narrow, elevated causeway on top of the Ridge
a thing as near the impossible as anything can be.
From many miles away one saw the great hump of
Grand Couronne, always in view as one crossed the last
plain towards the hills of the front. At its crest was a
great white scar, due to the continual pounding of our
guns which smashed and re-smashed and then disinte-
grated the rocks near its summit. And just above the
white scar could be discerned a tiny black dot. This
represented the narrow look-out slits of the iron and
concrete observation pK)st built at the summit. Some
body named this the Evil Eye, and nothing could des-
cribe it better. Everything we had and nearly every-
thing we did was overlooked by this baleful O.P.
Practically the whole of our lines were an open book
to the enemy. They could look down on all our trenches
zig-zagging across the landscape ; look into them even,
so that every corner had to have its leafy screen, and,
behind, our roads up which the transport came had to
be similarly screened at all sorts of points which at
221
SALONICA AND AFTER
first one would never dream were overlooked. But
nothing oould screen the plain beyond, and it was an
open book to them, and on the clearest days they could
trace our roads practically to the edge of Salonica itself
and with glasses oould pick out what was coming up
them. We looked up and saw only their roof top. They
looked down and saw everything that was going on in
our drawing-room or garden. We should have been lost
indeed without our splendid aviation" service which,
here as in France, completely outclassed the enemy in
individual work and dash and whose photographs, taken
by the thousand, were the only offset we had against
the Bulgar's superiority of positions. And the big
white scar on top of Grand Couronn6 showed the only
method we had of temporarily blinding the Evil Eye.
Our shells that burst there in the crumbled and pul-
verised rock threw up clouds of dust which hung in front
of the watchers embedded in their concrete and steel.
We put many direct hits on to the O.P., but we had
nothing heavy enough to destroy it, as one realised when
the opportunity came to examine it. On top of the Pip
Ridge was another O.P. much less easy to see, but our
gunners knew exactly where it was, and at one time
and another dropped hundreds of shells round it.
But much as one realised the strength of the enemy
positions by looking up at them, it was only when-
after the victory — we were able to ascend them and
look down on ours that it became apparent what a tre-
mendous, if not impossible, task we had been " up
against " in trying to storm these hill fortresses streng-
thened as they were by ample heavy artillery, by every
device known to the science of modem warfare, and
manned by strong garrisons of picked troops, who lived
for the most part in security in their great dug-outs
blasted 'm the solid rock and who wanted for nothing,
222
DOIRAN
either in clothing, food, comfort, munitions or equip-
ment. Some time after the victory I spent three days
in clambering up and down the ground over which our
men had fought. And as two of us stood on the summit
of the Grand Couronn^, just in front of the famous O.P.,
looking away down the slopes to what were once our
lines, my companion, an artillery Colonel, said, " Well,
no wonder the Bulgars used to laugh at us and say we
were mad ! "
Those three days were really hard work, although the
weather was cool and we were travelling light. And
throughout them I thought of our poor chaps lighting
over the same groimd in grilling hot weather, encum-
bered with their equipment and their bombs, gasping in
their gas masks, and knowing that when they arrived
breathless at the top of a slope they would, if they were
not shot down immediately, have to fight at close quar-
ters with a hardy Bulgar peasant who had only been
lying down on the top of the ridge, working the bolt of
his rifle or helping to fire a machine-gun. One's legs
ached with the climbing and scrambling, but one's heart
ached more at the idea that after their three years of
sticking it through the campaign 6o many of our lads
from the English shires or from Wales and Scotland
should have fallen on these barren slopes ; weary men,
burdened with their loads, gasping in the heat, perhaps
almost welcoming the bullet that added their clay to
the clay of this alien land.
To explore Grand Couronn6, the little Ford van took
us along the lake road, through mined Doiran Town,
and so up the steep winding road to the back of the
fortress. There were heaps of every kind of munitions
and equipment still lying about — treasures for a whole
army of souvenir hunters. Then we explored the mas-
sive dug-outs with their huge timber baulks support-
223
SALONICA AND AFTER
ing the roofs of solid or piled-up rock. For the officers
there were wonderful little houses, steel-lined, solid and
comfortable ; the sort of place a British battalion com-
mander would have blushed to live in, feeling that he
was even better off than the gorgeous people who fought
their war in Whitehall. For all the men, too, there was
accommodation infinitely better than ours dreamed of.
The Bulgar is generally a brutish, low-grade peasant,
but in the war of positions at Doiran he was a much
more favoured individual than our men — with the ex-
ception that in the cold weather he suffered more from
the north wind.
But it was when we had climbed up the winding,
rocky communication trench up to the O.P. at the sum-
mit that we realised what Grand Couronne meant.
There lay what for so long were our positions, an aver-
age of a thousand feet below. Between us and them
were three strong Bulgar lines, clearly defined, the near-
est only a couple of hundred feet below us down the bare
slope with its smashed rocks. And there, just imme-
diately in front of the final Bulgar line, was the position
known as the Rockies, to which a few of our men fought
their way in the final offensive, and where Lieut.-Colonel
Burges, of the 7th South Wales Borderers, won his V.C.
We clambered down the slope, and at every step kicked
against the fragments of our own shells; marked the
steeply rising ground cut across by ravine after ravine
up which our men had come on to the attack, and mar-
velled again how they had managed tu win so far with
scores of securely placed machine-guns playing on them.
From where we were the rounded Tortoise Hill seemed
a very modest eminence. It was not a very clear day,
but the whole of the Janesh plain was open to view, and
at one moment we caught a glimpse of the sea near
Salonica. One could imagine how on one of those
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DOIRAN
startlingly clear days which are frequent in Macedonia
the whole of the British territory was laid bare to the
view.
But impressive as it was in its overpowering strength,
Grand Couronne paled before the sinister perfection of
the Pip Ridge as a place to defend against attacking
troops. The day after visiting Grand Couronne, we
climbed up to where our trenches crossed over Horse-
shoe Hill at a height of a little over 1,500 feet, the same
trenches won by the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry
in August, 1916. Out of these we scrambled on to the
smashed, scarred ground which had been pounded by
thousands of shells, trench mortars, bombs and aerial
torpedoes, whose fragments (with a considerable ad-
mixture of " duds ") were lying everywhere. Horse-
shoe Hill is really a part of Pip Ridge itself. We walked
on through the tangles of wire up the Ridge, churned
up, every foot of it, by explosives, until we came to the
knolls known as P. 5. and P. 4 J. This latter was the
furthest point up the ridge on which we were able to
establish ourselves in the Spring offensive of 1917, and
for a time this murderous spot was part of our trench
line. But we had to withdraw from both positions as
continuous trenches and retain them only as strong
points; not only because of the cost of holding them,
but because it was impossible, owing to the exposed
position, to run communication trenches directly back
to our line on Horseshoe, and communication had to be
maintained obliquely up and down the steep sides of
the ridge.
Just beyond here, to the right, the hill-side runs down
steeply through the Corne du Bois (an isolated patch
bi stunted trees) down to Jackson's Ravine, a bit of
country hidden from the enemy, and on the hillside we
could see the lines of white tape still lying there which
225 Q
SALONICA AND AFTER
marked out the assembly points in the 1918 attack.
And here also were even more touching relics of an
attack which was a sacrifice in order that victory might
be won elsewhere. There were many British graves,
with sad, gruesome reminders of what we all return to,
sticking up out of the soil. Most of our troops fell at
P. 4 J and P. 4., but far onwards, up the Ridge towards
P. 3., were found the bodies of some of our men who
had gallantly struggled forward.
The Pip Ridge is an inclined causeway up in the
clouds, in parts no more than forty feet wide and with
the sides dropping steeply away to right and left. It
may be fairly likened to a railway embankment lifted
up to a great height, and with one end tilted up so
that a heavy gradient is formed. Up the sides of the
hill, over the narrow crest and down the other side, our
advanced trenches ran, the Bulgar wire beginning at
P. 4j., five or six hundred yards or so further on. It
can be imagined what it was like to charge up this
steep road, with the Bulgar s barring the way with
machine guns. It was hard work even walking up the
Ridge. At P. 4 J., the scene of several desperate hand-
to-hand encounters, we found the Bulgar trenches prac-
tically obliterated. Hundreds and hundreds of tons of
metal had been thrown up there by our guns far below.
The trenches at P. 4. were also badly smashed. Here the
heaviest fighting and our heaviest losses occurred in the
opening attack of 1918. A further 500 yards upwards
and we came to Pip. 3. Here, to the left, runs out and
down the spur of Little Dolina, seamed with Bulgar
trenches, an extra buttress to the defences of the Ridge,
and if this combination were not enough, a little way
beyond runs out the bigger and parallel spur of Dolina
which was the final touch of perfection in the defence
of the ridge. It was an amazingly formidable combina-
226
DOIRAN
tion. At P. 8. the deep trenches were badly smashed
by our artillery, but not almost entirely flattened out
as were those on P. 4 J. Many of the deep rock-cut
dug-outs were still intact, even though some of our
heaviest shells had thudded on them, and from out of
these the machine-guns came which largely caused our
attacks to wither away. An unobtrusive little chimney
or ventilating shaft poked its nose up above the ground.
One traced it down below, and there, thirty or forty
feet under the surface of this high stronghold, the enemy
sat in comparative security from the " heavy stuff "
(eight-inch was the heaviest we had) which we flung
from miles away down below.
A further stiff walk and at last we were up on P. 2.,
long known as Hill 535, although its height in metres is
really 692. This was the chief objective of the British
attacks, both in 1917 and 1918, and standing on it one
realised the appalling task set any troops in trying to
capture it. From here even Grand Couronne is domin-
ated, away across the saddle of Koh-i-noor, and if we
had gained it and held it firmly, the whole Bulgar
defence system from the "^^ardar to Doiran would have
fallen. But in spite of repeated bravery and sacrifice
of the highest order, in which our precious, sparse bat-
talions lost up to sixty and seventy per cent, in casual-
ties, we never succeeded in driving him off these twin
strongholds. They were held in strong force by picked
troops who, when our barrage had lifted, came out of
their rocky dungeons and raked our men with machine
gun fire ; our poor pigmies labouring up those vast hill-
sides. But the attacks had to be made both in 1917
and 1918, and without the sacrifice paid there victory
could not have been bought. But as one stood on the
battered observation post at the summit of P. 2. and
looked across at the parallel slopes of Grand Couronne,
227
SALONICA AND AFTER
one felt sad to think that men who in 1915 could not
have told you where Macedonia was, should have to lay
down their lives in such an unfriendly and hostile place
in attempting the impossible. In January, 1918,
General Henrys, the Commander-in-Chief of the French
Army in the Balkans, visited this ground in company
with Majojr-General Duncan, commanding the 22nd
Division. I talked to him shortly afterwards of his im-
pressions up there, and he agreed that he had never
seen ground so wonderfully adapted for defence, and so
hopeless for the attacker.
A third day we devoted to an exploration of the
Jumeaux Ravine, Petit Couronne, and the ground im-
mediately around it. And in quite a different fashion
this was as impressive as the Pip Ridge. When at the
bottom of the Jumeaux Ravine, you are in a deep F-
shaped cleft whose walls run up the sides of the Tor-
toise and Petit Couronne to a height of three or four
hundred feet. At other times it might attract as a
jolly place to explore; the sort of wild spot in which
an adventurous boy would feel just a little scared
if alone. But as a battleground, a place where men
were caught under a barrage of heavy shells, it is too
dreadful to contemplate. All along the sandy floor of
the ravine we saw the remains of Bulgar heavy shell,
eight-inch and twelve-inch, and various unexploded
trench-mortar bombs as big as footballs. In no place
could one imagine the blasting and rending power of
modern projectiles being so terrible as down at the
bottom of this gorge, in the darkness of the night with
the air split by blinding light and the rocky walls re-
sounding to the deafening crash of high explosive. In
the 1917 attack our men came down the tributary
ravines — Dorset, Hand, Claw, and the rest — leading
from our positions on Tortoise. Each narrow tributary
228
DOIRAN
gully was heavily barraged, but the main enemy fire
was reserved for Jumeaux, and this was a blazing,
crashing Hell. And yet they crossed it and swarmed
up the steep sides of Petit Couronne and captured the
trenches, and remained there until well on in the next
day.
Having explored the entire length of Jumeaux, we
climbed up to Petit Couronne itself, and walked along
or near the trenches on its crest ; in and out of the wire,
stumbling, jumping. To our right yawned the deep
Ravine, and rising up from it on the other side was the
steep flank of Tortoise. The Bulgar never attacked us
on our chief stronghold. It was our grim fate to have
to try four times to drive him from his.
It was in such country as this, down and across these
deep ravines, and up the sides of the opposing hills,
and on the long slope of Pip Ridge, that the British
Forces had to make their Spring offensive in 1917. The
conflicting factors which go to make iip an Allied Com-
mand, which is in turn one small branch of a world- war,
willed that we should attack this iron, impregnable
front at a time when no operations were going on else-
where in the Balkans. The enemy knew that we were
going to attack, and made elaborate preparations to
receive us. Our new preparations, such as the regis-
tration of the artillery, inevitably gave him a pretty
shrewd idea of what we were about to attempt. His
formidable positions were now organised to the highest
pitch of perfection. We knew that his artillery was
at least as strong as ours, and that he had far more
heavy guns than we possessed, our highest calibre at
that time being six-inch. But the battles that followed
revealed that he was much stronger than we ever
thought; that he had been keeping quite a lot of artil-
229
SALONICA AND AFTER
lery **up his sleeve." He had no lack of troops to hold
his hill fortresses, and no lack of reserves in easy call.
He held ninety-nine per cent, of advantage in the general
situation. It was to be an uphill fight for us in every
sense of the word. It was understood that there was
to be Allied support elsewhere on the line, but this was
not forthcoming, and we had to attack the pivot of the
whole enemy line with nothing happening to distract
him elsewhere.
The chief objectives of the offensive were the Pip
Ridge and Petit Couronne. The task of attacking the
first, on the left of the operations, fell to the 22nd Divi-
sion, their line of attack running from the Ridge down
to Hill 880. To the 26th Division fell the task of attack-
ing the very strong Bulgar line on a front of about 8,000
yards from a point known as 0.6 down to the lake, in-
cluding the main bastion of this line. Petit Couronne.
There were two attacks ; the first on the night of April
24-25th, and the second on the night of May 8-9th.
The fighting was on as fierce a scale as any yet seen
in the Balkans, and the artillery concentration was the
heaviest yet known. In the first attack the 65th and
66th Brigades of the 22nd Division gained a good deal
of ground, pushing their way up from Horseshoe for
some four or five hundred yards on the Ridge and cap-
turing the Mamelon and Hill 880. At the same time
the 78th and 79th Brigades of the 26th Division at-
tacked the Bulgar line from Petit Couronne down to
the lake. Our troops entered the Bulgar line at many
points but had heavy losses, particularly in the Jum-
eaux Ravine, both going and returning, and were forced
back to their trenches. The bright side to this costly
operation was that between April 26th and 28th the
Bulgars launched four heavy counter-attacks against
the new line held by the 22nd Division, and were each
280
DOIRAN
time thrown back with great losses, the 18th MancheS-
ters and 8th K.S.L.I.'s doing especially heavy
execution.
In the second attack the 60th, 22nd, and 26th Divi-
sions took part, but the brunt of the fighting fell on
the latter. Their objective was again from Petit Cour-
onne down to the lake. Our men showed amazing
courage and fortitude in the most forbidding circum-
stances. They knew that it was practically a forlorn
hope. Again the Jumeaux Ravine claimed many
victims, but in spite of very heavy losses the 7th Oxford
and Bucks Light Infantry and two companies of the
7th Berkshires fought their way right up the precipitous
side of Petit Couronne, and after further heavy losses
from a fierce trench mortar barrage finally took and
held the trenches on the summit, practically all the
officers now being killed or wounded. But their posi-
tion became hopeless, and they had to withdraw next
day. Both battalions were specially commended for
their " splendid gallantry and determination."
Further down the line towards the lake English and
Scotch battalions (10th Black Watch, 9th Gloucesters,
11th Scottish Rifles, 12th Argylls, 11th Worcesters, and
8th R.S.F.) had some very fierce and costly fighting in
the Bulgar lines, but had finally to withdraw. The
Bulgar barrage, both artillery and trench mortar, every-
where claimed many victims, and the conditions of
fighting in the dark in such rugged ground cannot possi-
bly be conceived by those who do not know the tumbled
surface of Macedonia.*
We had tried the impossible and failed. We had
* Other battalions who played a gallant part in these operations
were the 7th Wiltshires, 12th Hants, 10th Devons, 8th D.C.L.I., 9th
Border Regiment, 9th South Lanes., 2/20th London Regiment, 8th
S. Wales Borderers, 12th Lanes. Fusiliers, 9th K.O.R.L., 7th S.
Wales Borderers, and 11th Welsh Fusili»rs.
231
SALONICA AND AFTER
fought two major battles, against terrible positions, in
which the volume of artillery fire was such as the Bal-
kans had never echoed to before. But it was not a
success — and consequently little or nothing was heard
of it all at home. It was not altogether the fault either
of the Press or the Public that the courage and losses
of our men at Doiran were so little known or talked
about. The enemy knew that, in spite of the ground
we had gained, he had generally repulsed us with heavy
losses, but after all it was not the business of our Com-
mand to let the enemy know exactly how much we
had suffered. In history a nation may be proud of a
reverse, but it can quite easily be a piece of mihtary
stupidity to blazon it forth at the time. But the men,
or the officers either for that matter, could not think on
these lines. They were conscious only of the fact that
they had fought two battles against great odds, in which
two Divisions had suffered over 6,000 casualties, and in
which certain battalions had lost up to seventy per cent,
of their strength. The men who had crossed over the
flaming, crashing Jumeaux Ravine, hung on to Petit
Couronne, and crossed back again, or the men who had
fought their way from Horseshoe up to the Pip Ridge,
or who had won and retained Hill 380 and Mamelon —
these men knew that they had been through an ordeal
as fierce as anything that could be conjured up in the
hell of trench warfare in France, and they naturally
wanted it to be known. It was the fact that Home knew
nothing of the battles of Doiran, and still talked about
there being " no fighting on the Salonica Front," which
accounted in a large measure for the soreness and sense
of injustice of the whole B.S.F. Our men felt that in
order for it to be good to die for one's country one
should first of all possess a country which appreciates
and acknowledges the sacrifice.
282
CHAPTER XVIII.
Victory.
The year 1918, which was to bring victory in the
Balkans as the prelude to final victory elsewhere, threat-
ened for the greater part of its length to be more diffi-
cult than any of those preceding it — at times, indeed,
threatened to bring disaster. The grave turn of affairs
which came on the Western Front in the last days of
March had for everybody in the Balkans a particular
as well as a general significance. As we breathlessly
followed the giant struggle that was proceeding there
we were subject to a twofold anxiety; an anxiety that
occupied two separate compa'rtiments in the mind.
While a decisive German success in the West might
or might not mean the end of all things we knew that
it certainly would mean the end of everything in the
Balkans, and although those at home might easily
forget the lesser in the greater, those in the Balkans
had their own immediate affairs to think about as well
as those of greater majesty that were happening else-
where. A German break-through in the West must
necessarily have meant that sooner or later the Balkan
Armies would be attacked in overwhelming force. In
the West civilization was really at stake; had fortune
and our own strength failed us it is impossible to con-
jecture all that is dreadful that would have followed.
But one sequel was clear in the Balkans, and that was
that sooner or later our forces there would have been
238
SALONICA AND AFTER
swept away. As the Army has it, we should have been
"scuppered."
As far as the British Army in the Balkans was par-
ticularly concerned we were never in a worse condition,
materially, to meet a great strain than throughout the
summer of 1918. We had sustained heavy losses in
1917, which had not been replaced by reinforcements.
Our four Divisions were all much below strength, and
during the whole of the year the steady drain of the
''Y" scheme went on. A large proportion of the men
left were in an indifferent state of health. And in
June, to meet the great and immediate danger on the
West, twelve of our Infantry battalions were sent there,
reducing our strength at a stroke by one quarter. The
battalions sent to France were the 13th Royal High-
landers (Scottish Horse), 14th King's Liverpool Regi-
ment, 4th K.R.R.C, 7th Wiltshires, 2nd Northumber-
land Fusiliers, 1st K. O. Y.L.I. , 10th Camerons, 3rd
Royal Fusiliers, 13th Manchesters, 10th Royal High-
landers, 12th Lancashire Fusiliers and 9th Gloucesters.
The men from Salonica were received rather coldly
at first. The general impression among their new com-
rades was that they had never seen any fighting.
Officers in their new messes were asked naively if they
had ever been "over the top." Their statements of
battalions which had lost sixty and seventy per cent, of
their strength in attacks in Macedonia in 1917 were re-
ceived with incredulity, which became amazement when
it was realised that such statements were the plain
truth. Why had they never heard these things ? And
the Salonica men soon showed, what indeed must have
been plain to anybody who thought for a moment, that
they were made of the same stuff as the best in France,
and they distinguished themselves signally in the fight-
ing with the 50th and 66th Divisions. Before this heavy
284
VICTORY
demand on our Balkan troops came there had been d
previous call for commanding officers and seconds-in-
command of line battalions for France. This was in
the darkest days following March, and the call was
answered immediately. I saw one of my best B.S.F.
friends off at the dusty Orient Station. He had no il-
lusions as to what he was going out to see, but said,
laughingly, "Anything to get away from this damned
country." In France he gained a bar to his D.S.O. —
but died of the third wound he received on the day he
earned that proud distinction.
Summer found the British forces, then, at their very
lowest ebb, and with the usual hot-weather ailments
playing their usual part. And as if fate had not already
been unkind enough a sudden and severe outbreak of
influenza, which broke out in August, caused great
ravages among our tried and weary troops, who were
as little fitted as could be to resist this terrible malady.
And though the B.S.F. had long previous to this begun
to comb itself out, so as to try and meet its own re-
quirements from within, we see from General Sir George
Milne's despatch of December 1st, 1918, that at the
moment of the final offensive our fighting strength had
fallen below one-half the normal establishment. The
epidemic of influenza spread with "almost explosive
force," to quote a report on the subject. During Sep-
tember and October there were nearly 12,000 admissions
to hospital for influenza and over 1,000 for pneumonia.
The mortality amongst the pneumonia cases was, very
high, the prevailing debility following on malaria
largely accounting for this.
In the months of May, June, and July the situation
was in a curiously delicate and uncertain condition. It
was to be expected that with the Germans obtaining
apparently overwhelming successes on the West they
285
SALONICA AND AFTER
would, if possible, stimulate their Bulgarian Allies into
a keener manifestation of the offensive spirit than they
had shown for two years past. The strength, or lack
of it, of the British forces must have been well-known
to the enemy. But coincidently with this critical period
in our own affairs a very distinct spirjt of war-weariness
began to manifest itself in the Bulgarian ranks. There
were reports of mutinies, which were later confirmed.
Deserters, who throughout the campaign had always
trickled steadily over to us, began to arrive in greater
numbers. From these and other sources it was learned
that the Bulgarians were contemplating an attack in
force on the lightest held part of the Balkan line — the
long British front from Doiran to the sea. We had
every reason not to desire any such trial of strength,
because we simply did not possess the forces adequate
to hold up a determined offensive. But all the same
we took every possible step to meet it and completed
the strategic roads which would have facilitated us in
getting back to the Lahana ridge in rear, where we had
strengthened our second line. From there further stra-
tegic roads had long been constructed back towards
the "Birdcage" in case it ever came to the worst — or
the nearly worst.
On our side, however, there was the favourable factor
that the new Greek Armies were rapidly coming into
line. How far this weighed with the Bulgarian Com-
mand it is not easy to say. The Bulgar has the in-
grained habit of despising the Greek — in spite of the
drubbing he received in 1913 — and the events of 1916,
when he was allowed to invade the country, are not
likely to have done much to remove this impression.
From what we know of him, then, it is not likely
that the " Prussian of the Balkans " was very
greatly influenced by the coming in of our new ally.
236
VICTORY
What did weigh mofe with the Bulgarian High Com-
mand was the increasing war-weariness among its
troops. The * 'fed-up" feeling developed rapidly during
the summer. The Bulgars are a mulish, obstinate
people. They did not want to attack at any price,
and the temper of the troops was too dangerous to
try and force them at this stage to play Germany's
game. The German element in the Bulgarian Army
was now much less numerous. A strong leaven of
specialist troops still remained — artillery, trench mor-
tars, machine guns and aviation — with German officers
in command and German staffs, but nearly all the
German divisions had gone elsewhere. And by the
middle of the summer the Allies had every reason to
come to this definite conclusion — that the Bulgars were
determined not to make any kind of attack on us, but
that they were equally determined to resist to the last
any offensive by us. They were superbly entrenched,
well supplied and munitioned, and had no lack of troops
who could he relied on to fight indefinitely on the de-
fensive. J'y suiSf fy teste was their policy, and this
being so, the Allies made up their minds to try and
shift them. As the Bulgars did not feel inclined to
attack us we decided to attack them. We had now nine
Greek divisions coming into line, and their presence
made a vital difference, whatever the enemy may have
thought about it.
The coming of the Greeks soon produced a change in
the British line. Gradually they took over the Struma
Valley, from the Seres Road eastwards to the sea, and
the 27th Division, which had held this line for over
two-and-a-half years was moved over to a section of
trenches running westwards from the Vardar, just south
of the important town of Guevgheli. The 28th Division
moved a little westwards along the Krusha Balkan, and
287
SALONICA AND AFTER
took up a shorter line nearer Lake Doiran. We thus
had the four British Divisions concentrated — if one may
apply such a word to Divisions which were so much
below strength — on a front of some 35 miles, they being,
from west to east, the 27th, 26th, 22nd, and 28th.
The first Greek troops to come under General Milne's
command were those of the Larissa Division. Later
they were joined by the Seres and Cretan Divisions.
The Seres Division went into line with the 22nd Division
in front of Doiran, and immediately on every notice
board in the trenches and back areas was seen a Greek
legend under the English. The Cretan Division went
into line with the 28th, on the Krusha-Balkan hills,
just to the right of the lake. On the French front
similar re-arrangements were taking place between
French, Greek, and Serbian Divisions.
The enemy, still firm in his policy of "Here I am ;
here I stop," took a great interest in all these proceed-
ings, but was able to find out very little. We kept him
''guessing" all the time. The 27th Division (Maj.-Gen.
G. T. Forest ier-Walker) played a great part in this
game. Immediately they went into their new line to
the west of the Vardar they began to take the keenest
interest in the ground that lay before them. Patrols
were out every night, and in two or three weeks the
Division knew every inch of the new territory. Late in
the month of August a series of heavy bombardments
was directed on the enemy lines. Trench raids were
of frequent occurrence, and we were constantly cap-
turing prisoners. Our men showed themselves thor-
oughly superior at the game, and kept the enemy in a
state of nervous tension. A month or more of this sort
of work culminated on the afternoon of September 1st
in an attack against the rocky and strongly-fortified
salient of Alchak Mahale, which, after an intensive bom-
288
VICTORY
bardment, was carried splendidly at the first assault
by the 2nd Gloucesters and the 10th Hampshires. The
enemy launched several determined counter-attacks
against the lost position, all of which were repulsed
with heavy losses. A week later the Greeks in the
Struma Valley advanced their line on a wide front
without any opposition, taking up positions well in
advance of the river. These were the chief operations
on the Anglo-Greek front preliminary to the launching
of the offensive.
The British role was now to await the result of the
Franco-Serbian attack to the west. The idea of trying
for a really decisive blow on the vital and almost in-
accessible but thinly-held line of peaks on the Serbian
front between Vetrenik and Sokol was no new one.
After the abortive offensive of May, 1917, the plan of
this same attack was drawn up by Voivode Mischitch,
the details being worked out at French G.H.Q., chiefly
by Lieut. -Col. Errard. The plan of the Serbian Marshal
was approved by General Sarrail, but was not put into
operation. General Guillaumat's plan was of much
smaller scope, its principal aim being to pin down the
Bulgars and prevent enemy reinforcement's of his
front in France. General Franchet d'Esperey adopted
the Mischitch-Errard plan, and carried it out practically
to the letter. Shortly after his arrival in Macedonia
he held a conference, on July 27th, at which were
present the Serbian Crown Prince, Voivode Mischitch
(Serbian Chief of Staff), General Boyovitch (Command-
ing the 1st Army), and Voivode Stepan Stepanovitch
(Commanding the 2nd Army). The Prince was in favour
of an attack on the Serbian front. The final decision to
put the plan into execution was taken on August 8th.
The idea was by a carefully prepared and powerful
surprise attack to break the enemy front at the point
289
SALONICA AND AFTER
where it was held in weakest force, and where a break
would be most decisive, and by pouring troops through
the gap to exploit the rupture to the utmost extent.
Nature had here made the enemy lines on the Serbian
front immensely strong, but his defensive organization
had little depth, and he was weak in artillery. More-
over, a detailed study of the whole of the front showed
that this sector was particularly favourable for attack,
because, once the line was broken, the enemy would
find himself faced with great difficulties in the way of
reinforcement and the power to manoeuvre ; and more-
over, once the Allies had forced the line here they would
occupy dominating positions, and be almost immedi-
ately within measurable striking distance of the
enemy's chief communications. The Allied objective
was to reach the line running from Demir Kapu on the
Vardar westwards to Kavardartzi. By this means it
was hoped to arrive at two main results :
(a) Separate the Bulgar forces in the Vardar Valley
from the Bulgar forces round Monastir.
(b) Cut the principal enemy communications — viz.,
the road and railway running down the Vardar and the
road and railway between Prilep and Gradsko.
Extensive preparations were made for a powerful
attack which would come as a complete surprise. New
roads were made and a plentiful supply of heavy artil-
lery was moved up. The French and Serbs had to un-
dertake a great amount of work, and most of it had
to be done at night. The enemy had to be kept entirely
unsuspicious. The line held by the Serbs was shortened
by half — from 38 miles to about 19. To add further to
the weight of the attack two French Divisions were in-
corporated in the 2nd Serbian Army ; the 17th (Colonial)
and 122nd Divisions. These two Divisions together with
the Schumadia (Serbian) Division were to make the
240
VICTORY
actual assault on the heights and break through. The
Yugo-Slav and Timok Divisions of the 2nd Army were
held in reserve to pour through immediately the breach
was made. On the left the 1st Serbian Army (Drina
and Danube Divisions, with the Morava Division and
the Cavalry Division in reserve) was to attack in con-
junction, and further exploit the success. The Serbian
troops were j>erhaps the finest in the world for such an
operation, which meant pushing ahead rapidly in very
mountainous country and being able, if necessary, to
do without food supplies for days together.
Even with the nine Greek Divisions now in line the
Allies had obtained only a very slight numerical superi-
ority, although in material strength we were at last
much ahead of the enemy. The Allies had now 28 In-
fantry Divisions — 8 French, 9 Greek, 6 Serbian, 4
British, and one Italian; the effectives of the latter,
however, being considerably larger than those of the
ordinary Italian Division. The following table gives a
fairly exact idea of the comparative strength of the
Allied and enemy forces :
ON THE WHOLE OF THE MACEDONIAN FRONT.
Allies. Enemy.
Battalions 889 ... 208
EfEective rifle strength 177562 ... 172200
Machine guns 2682 ... 2068
Light machine guns (including very
light French gun and British
Lewis guns) ... 64i24 ... ?
Guns, including heavy trench artillery 2069 ... 1810
Cavalry squadrons 47^ ... 26
Aeroplanes (about) 200 ... 80
Our greatest concentration was on the Serbian front,
at the point where it was intended to break through.
On the eve of the attack, following on the rapid trans-
241 K
SALONICA AND AFTER
ference there of the two French Divisions, the com-
parative strengths were :
ON THE SERBIAN FRONT ONLY.
Allies. Enemy.
Battalions
75
26
Effective rifle strength
86500
11600
Machine guns
756
245
Light do.
2610
?
Guns (including trench mortars) ...
580
146
Cavalry squadrons
18
—
Aeroplanes
81
24
It will be seen that at the point selected for the first
attack we were at an advantage of about three to one
all round. But against this Allied superiority the Bul-
gars had positions of immense natural strength which,
without the element of surprise, might easily have more
than neutralised our advantage.*
It is interesting to note that at this period the total
strength of the operative Serbian Army was 79,413, and
the grand total of Serbian troops of all kinds 83,767.
After Corfu they had gone up the line again in 1916
little more than 120,000 strong, and in eight months'
time they had lost half these, and of their losses nearly
one-half were killed. The above force of roughly 80,000
men included some 10,000 Yugo-Slav troops who had
come from Russia (some round by Vladivostock and
some via England and France). We see therefore that
of the 650,000 men mobilised by Serbia from first to
* In September, 1918, the entire ration strength of the B.S.F.
was round about 175,000, and on the 14th of the month touched
177,865. Our effective Fighting Strength in this month (Infantry,
Artillery, Machine-gun Companies, Trench Mortar Batteries, R.E.
Field Companies, Cavalry, Cyclists and Signals) varied between
65,000 and 50,000. Our * effective Trench Strength (Infantry— less
Pioneer Battalions — M.G. Companies and T.M. Batteries) varied be-
tween 35,000 and 25,000, and at the time of our attacks at Doiran
was about 30,000. At one period during the month the number of
sick in hospital reached 20,000.
242
VICTORY
last only about 70,000 troops of all kinds, including all
services, were left to take part in the victory which
gave them back their country. History surely can give
few cases of such unswerving loyalty and tenacity.
The region in which the attack was to be launched
was on the line of heights known as the Moglenitza
Range, whose major peaks, Sokol, Dobropolje and
Vetl-enik run to an average altitude of 5,000 feet. The
enemy, of course, held all the commanding points on
this range, and it was the last point at which he ex-
pected to be attacked. He had been thoroughly de-
ceived by the Allied preparations, and one of his main
concentrations was on the short Vardar-Doiran sector
of the British front, where he had 33 full strength Bat-
talions in line and many more within easy call.
By the end of the second week in September the
Allied preparations were complete. Our Armies, eager
to make an end of the Macedonian stalemate, faced a
worried and anxious enemy who sensed that something
serious was about to happen but had no idea when
or how. On the morning of September 14th the
Allied artillery crashed out all along the line. From
Monastir to Doiran, along eighty miles of mountain
ranges, the enemy positions were heavily bombarded.
He certainly had no doubt now that an attack was
coming, but there was still nothing to show where the
blow was to fall. It came at 5.30 next morning, the 15th,
in the place least expected. The 122nd (French) Divi-
sion attacked the beetling crags of Sokol on the left,
and the Schumadia Division attacked on the right. It
had been hoped that all the crests would be carried
within four hours, and that the Yugo-Slav and Timok
Divisions would immediately pour through the gap.
But the enemy resistance was strong and the slopes
were so steep that in places scaling ladders had to be
248
SALONfCA AND AFTER
used. The 122nd Division was held off its final objective
until nine at night. The Schumadia Division had done
splendid work, and on the left the first Serbian Army
was now supporting the final attack of the 122nd Division
on Sokol. By night a breach of eight miles had been
definitely made. Over 3,000 prisoners had been taken,
and 33 guns captured. The Serbian Reserve Divisions
poured through in the night, and pressed on towards
the dominating height of Koziak (about 5,500 feet),
which it had been hoped would be taken the first day.
It fell at noon on the 16th, and the enemy, knowing
its importance, made desperate efforts to re-take it.
The enemy flanks were now pushed back until the
breach was 16 miles wide. The whole of the six Ser-
bian Divisions, with their one Cavalry Division, were
now moving forward, attacking over the tumbled moun-
tainous country, and left and right the action extended,
like a prairie fire — to Albania on the west and Doiran
on the east. On either side French and Greeks joined
in, and at Doiran the British bombardment swelled
into a majestic roar. The Serbs in the centre were
pushing ever further forward. By September 21st they
had reached the Vardar and the Bulgarians, now divi-
ded, were trembling on the edge of final disaster.
But before this point was reached the British Front
had made its contribution to the beginning of the
general debacle. The breach had been made, but to
exploit the success thoroughly and make it finally de-
cisive it must be widened further and further, and the
enemy prevented at all costs from mending it by bring-
ing further troops from the east, from the British front.
As they pressed forward the Serbian and French troops
found practically no fresh enemy troops thrown in to
bar their way. This was the result of the fighting on
244
VICTORY
the British front, where the attacks against the for-
midable positions east and west of Doiran had now
been launched. On the Serb front the Allies heavily
outnumbered the enemy. On the Doiran front the
enemy heavily outnumbered us. But not a single enemy
battalion must be allowed to proceed from Doiran to
help in retrieving the beginnings of disaster whi^h had
declared themselves further west. There was little or
no hope of the British attack succeeding in itself. It
was to be a sacrifice to ensure victory elsewhere. But
it had to be done and General Franchet d'Esperey, the
Commander in-Chief of the Allied Forces, gave the word.
The British were to try again where they had already
twice failed to achieve the impossible. And our men,
who had already charged up those pitiless bullet and
shell swept slopes in 1917, knew exactly what was before
them.
The British attack opened at 5.15 on the morning of
the 18th. It was the beginning of a beautifully fine
September day — too fine, for the September sun in
Macedonia is very hot, and on both days of the Doiran
attacks there was a shade temperature of 100 deg. The
panorama of mountain lake and valley was looking its
loveliest. But the slopes of Pip Ridge and Grand
Couronne were already veiled in a cloud of dust from
the incessant pounding which our guns were giving them
and soon, as the attack progressed and the Bulgar guns
opened out to their fullest extent, the whole region of
the battle was enveloped in a smother of dust and
smoke from the midst of which came the flash and crash
of bursting shell. And into this roaring inferno our
troops went, with the Greeks by their side, to one of
the hardest tasks ever given soldiers to do.
Although our leaders knew only too well the naturt
of the enterprise to which they were committed, they
241
SALONICA AND AFTER
aimed at nothing short of complete success — viz., the
capture of Pip Ridge and Grand Couronne. Our ob-
jectives were the key positions to the whole of this
sector of the enemy front. Though the attack was
primarily intended as a holding attack, with little hope
of anything more, we were determined, in the unlikely
event of fortune smiling on us, to push our success to
its furthest limit. In other words, we thought it as
well to be killed for a sheep as a lamb. It is a homely
phrase to use in such a connection, but it exactly fits
the situation. All the odds were against us, but it was
a real and not a half attack.
The assault against the jumble of hills and ravineg^
culminating in the Pip Ridge and Grand Couronne was
divided into two halves, with the Bui gar trench position
known as 0. 6 as the central point of attack. From here
down to the lake the Greeks of the Seres Division had
the right or eastern half to themselves. The western
half was divided into three sectors. On the left the
66th Brigade (Brig.-Gen. F. S. Montague-Bates) of the
22nd Division (Major-Gen. J. Duncan) was to attack
the Pip Ridge. The 12th Cheshires were to lead off up
the side of Jackson's Ravine and captured P.4j and P. 4.
The 9th South Lanes, were then to advance through
them, and pushing on some five hundred yards beyond
up the steep and narrow causeway of the ridge, were
to try and capture P. 3 and the two fortified spurs, run-
ning off west, of Little Dolina and Dolina — a formidable
task indeed. And if everything went well the 8th
King's Shropshire Light Infantry were to push further
on through the South Lanes, and capture P. 2. (692
metres or about 2,100 feet high), the point of the ridge
nearest to and several hundreds of feet higher than
Grand Couronne.
In the centre of the Western half the 2nd Greek
246
VICTORY
Regiment (2 battalions with one in reserve) was told
off to take the series of rounded hills running up to
the left flank of Grand Couronne known as Sugar Loaf,
The Tongue, The Plume, and then over the Grand
Shoulder to the position known as Koh-i-noor, out-
flanking the crest of Grand Couronne itself. And on
the right of the western half of the attack the 67th
Brigade (7th South Wales Borderers, 11th Welsh Regi-
ment, the 11th Welsh Fusiliers) were to over-run the
Bulgar first line up the steep slopes of 0.6, and then
after taking in their stride the tangle of formidable
but lesser hills known as The Knot, the Hilt and The
Tassel which formed the second line, were to attack the
west face of Grand Couronne itself, which was defended
by a strong third line. On the eastern half the two
remaining regiments of the Seres Division had to attack
Petit Couronne and the formidable front line of which
it formed part, advance up over Red Scar Hill towards
Doiran Hill, overlooking the little ruined town, and
from there push on as far as possible up the western
slope of Grand Couronne. In the extent of ground
gained this attack proved to be the most successful of
all, although it was the 67th Brigade which penetrated
furthest into the enemy positions towards Grand
Couronne. And while all this was going on between
the lake and Pip Ridge two battalions (8th D. C.L.I.
and 12th Hants) of the 26th Division (Maj.-Gen. A. W.
Gay) were to demonstrate west of the ridge ; and east
of the lake the Cretan Division, supported by the 28th
Division (Maj.-Gen. H. L. Croker) were to advance
against the mountain wall of the Belashitza.
For four days our artillery had maintained its un-
ceasing thunder, pounding the triple line of trenches,
smashing in many dugouts (but leaving many of the
strongest rock-hewn caverns untouched) and smothering
247
SALONICA AND AFTER
the Bulgar lines up to the crests with high explosive.
We now had several batteries of eight-inch howitzers
in action, and they did splendid work. In the hot
September sunshine and throughout the nights the gun-
ners sweated away unceasingly, often under a very
heavy fire.
On the night of the 17th-18th the bombardment
swelled up into a more majestic roar, and for over six
hours before the assault we drenched the enemy's posi-
tions with gas shells, this being the first time we had
used them on the Balkan front. They proved of little
service to us, as the fumes had very little effect on the
enemy heights, where the slightest breath of wind was
sufficient to dissipate them. And whether because of
our own gas or — as was probable — the enemy was using
gas shell himself, some of our battalions had to assemble
and make their first attack up the steep slopes wearing
masks, which added much to their exhaustion. The
assembly of our troops was a difficult matter as all the
roads were in view of the enemy and the night was
clear. But we put down a smoke barrage on the
enemy's front system, and by this means we were able
to assemble in the various ravines just behind our lines
and deploy our troops without a hitch.
The 12th Cheshires led off on the extreme left. Just
before the barrage lifted at eleven minutes past five
they climbed up the steep side of Jackson's Ravine on
to the Ridge. The barrage moved on ahead, and "A"
Company went with a rush for P.4J. As they reached
the first enemy work on the Ridge some forty Bulgars
poured out of it, and there was a check and some sharp
hand to hand fighting. Three of the Bulgars were taken
prisoners and the rest disposed of. During the progress
of this the remaining three Companies came on up to
P. 4 J., but as the first of them reached it there was a
Q48
VICTORY
heavy explosion — due either to a mine or an ammuni-
tion dump — which caused many casualties. By this time,
owing to the unexpected check, our barrage had trav-
elled far up the ridge in advance of the attacking troops.
Machine gun fire developed from all directions, and in
addition the enemy at P. 4. opened with a trench mortar
barrage. In spite of serious casualties the Cheshires
pushed on up the causeway to P. 4. The eastern end
of this very strong work was now alive with Bulgars
who had come up from their dugouts. As our men
reached it a flammenwerfer came into action. The
operator was killed, but this apparatus also blew up,
causing casualties and delay. On the right of this
second fortress "D" Company found itself fronted with
heavy rifle fire and bombs. What was left of ''A" Com-
pany penetrated the centre, and "B" and '*C" Com-
panies pushed on rapidly up the long slope leading to
P. 8., four or five hundred yards ahead. But by this
time the trenches on the spur of Little Dolina were
manned and from here and from P.3. a sheet of machine
gun bullets poured down. Behind them, too, in P. 4.
the Bulgars turned machine guns on them. Our men
just melted away and lay on the parched brown grass
of the slope up which they were labouring. Lieut. -Col.
the Hon. A. R. Clegg-Hill, D.S.O., fell, mortally
wounded. In a few minutes the battalion had practi-
cally ceased to exist.
The 9th South Lanes., following close behind the
Cheshires, ran into a sheet of machine gun bullets, the
enemy now being untroubled for the time being by our
artillery, and having only to shoot. By the time they
had rushed up the ridge to P. 4. they had lost so terribly
that they were unable to carry their attack further
than that work. Lieut. -Col. B. F. Bishop, M.C., was
killed there, and the battalion, as an ofiEicial report said
249
SALONICA AND AFTER
bluntly, was "more or less annihilated." As the 8th
K.S.L.I.'s pressed on behind the South Lanes, they
also suffered very heavy casualties in that stretch of
about three hundred yards. The Bulgars now attacked
heavily down the slope on to P. 4. and, fighting stub-
bornly, our men were pressed back down to P.4j.
Lieut.-Col. J. D. B. Erskine, of the K.S.L.I.'s, realis-
ing that it was impossible to continue the attack, col-
lected what men and officers he could from all three
battalions, and withdrew them to the shelter of Jack-
son's Ravine, down to the right of the slope. For a time
he commanded only four officers and 240 men, but
others gradually came in. The average strength of the
attacking battalions was about four hundred. In this
short but murderous attack we lost 37 officers and 800
other ranks, or about 65 per cent, of the Brigade. Later
in the morning a further attempt was made to occupy
P. 4j, but this had to be abandoned. The enemy's
hold on the ridge was quite unshaken. There was no
reward for British heroism on this September morning.
The fortunes of the 3rd Greek Regiment of the Seres
Division, sandwiched between our 66th and 67th Bri-
gades, were much the same. They went up into the
crashing and smoke with great dash, broke through the
front line at the hill known as the Sugar Loaf, and half
an hour after starting were assaulting the enemy's main
line, consisting of the very formidable works of The
Plume and The Warren. They captured the whole
strongly defended system, killed many Bulgars and took
about eighty prisoners. But about this time the dust and
smoke clouds of the bombardment began to lift. From
the Ridge, now clear of our men but for the dead and
wounded, and from Grand Couronne, the machine guns
began to rattle and chatter by the dozen, causing many
casualties to the Greeks. The Bulgars then heavily
250
VICTORY
counter-attacked from the Grand Ravine, and drove
the Greeks out of their main line. And as the Greeks
had no support on their left owing to our failure on the
Ridge, they fell back to their point of assembly, in the
shelter of one of our own ravines. As a consequence of
this an order to the 77th Brigade, in reserve, to move
up to the Warren to the left of the Greeks and attack
P.3, sheer up the mountain side from the east, was
immediately cancelled.
On the right of the western half of the attack, the
Welshmen of the 67th Brigade (Brig.-Gen. A. D. Mac-
pherson) fought their way magnificently up the string
of heights leading up to their main objective. Grand
Couronne, but it was only at the cost of heavy sacrifices
all the way. Two companies of the 11th Welsh Fusi-
liers (Lieut. -Col. A. H. Yatman), had some stem and
bitter fighting before they could carry and retain posses-
siion of the strongly defended works in and about 0.6 in
the enemy front line. The two remaining companies of
the battalion broke the line just east of the Sugar Loaf
hill, rushed and killed the garrison on The Knot, and
pressed on to the very strongly protected hill called The
Hilt. The enemy trenches were heavily manned and
there was concentrated machine gun and trench
mortar fire. This stronghold, too, was overcome, but
only after half the two companies had become casualties.
They were finally forced back by strong counter attacks
from The Knot. The Fusiliers were compelled to wear
their gas masks all the way from the assembly point, and
were much exhausted by it. They were in no condition
to withstand heavy attacks by fresh troops coming
downhill. Every officer and all but two N.C.O.'s had
become casualties.
Following the Fusiliers, the 11th Welsh (Lieut.-Col.
L. H. Trist), also wearing masks, attacked from Shrop-
251
SALONICA AND AFTER
shire Ravine. They tried to exploit the advance of
the Fusiliers, and from The Tassel got into touch with
them over the ravine, on The Hilt. But from the top
slopes of The Hilt the enemy launched another
formidable counter attack. The Greeks on the
left were now retiring, and the 11th Welsh col-
lected its remnants and also retired. Later in the
morning they made two further attempts to occupy
Sugar Loaf, but were driven back by heavy fire.
The 7th S. Wales Borderers (Lieut.-Col. D. Burgee)
followed on the track of the Greeks in the centre, but
all the same found much resistance all the way from the
Bulgars who had filtered back into the trenches. With
but few losses they went through the first and second
lines and attacked the slopes of The Feather, in the
third line. Some Greeks had joined them on their way
up, and remained with them. Up to now they had
been fighting in a gigantic dust cloud, in and out of
which, at very low heights, hovered our aeroplanes on
contact patrol. As the S.W.B.'s progressed up The
Feather they were met by intense machine gun fire.
But they reached the gaps in the wire at the top, and lay
there for our barrage to lift. As it did so the smoke and
dust cloud cleared. Our men were in full view at close
range from many machine guns. The trenches they
were now attacking were far up on the slopes of Grand
Couronne, only about 250 yards from the summit. The
trenches were very strongly manned and a terrific rifle
and machine gun fire was poured down the spur, and
from the surrounding ridges other machine guns concen-
trated. A great many of the Borderers fell, but the
rest — just a brave remnant — rushed the trenches and,
spent and weary as they were, grappled with the de-
fenders, who had done nothing more exhausting than
sit in their dug-outs. The gallant few wert se%n to
252
VICTORY
reach the trenches, and were seen to fall. They had
attained almost the summit of Grand Couronn^, but
only to die there. The last to leave those tragic slopes
were the sole survivors of the South Wales Borderers —
eighteen unwounded men and one wounded officer"^.
Out of all the gallantry and horror and raging inferno
of that early morning this was their reward — to come
back leaving all their comrades lying on the hot, bare
rocks and in the sparse scrub above. True, the bat-
talion only started a few hundreds strong. But is there
anything in our history to surpass it ? Balaklava
grows dim beside it. But it is unlikely that any
Laureate will sing the story of Grand Couronne.
In all the murderous and confused fighting of that
terrible morning we had apparently made sure of only
one thing — our honour. But the sacrifice was a sacrifice
to victory. While our troops were falling at Doiran
the Serbs were forging ahead, far away to the westward.
On the right half of the attack, which was carried out
by the Greek troops, under British direction, and with
one of our battalions — ^the 2nd King's Own Regiment —
in support, we had more material gains to register.
The British command profited by our previous experi-
ence with Petit Couronne, and no direct attack was
made on it. This stronghold was *' pinched out " by
* Lieut. -Col. Dan Burges, D.S.O., of the 7th S. Wales Borderers,
was badly wounded three times, and was later picked up by Germans
and carried into a Bulgar dug-out behind Grand Couronn^, wh©r«
he was attended to. He was recovered in the advance, and was later
awarded the Victoria Cross. The award said : " His coolness and
personal courage was most marked throughout the advance and
afforded a magnificent example to officers and men of his battalion.
The ability he displayed in preparing and executing a most difficult
operation is worthy of all praise." Before the attack Lieut. -Colonel
Burges had made several personal reconnaissances up to the enemy's
first line, and during the attack he was able to keep direction
although every landmark was completely hidden in smoke and dust.
Lieut.-Colonel L. H. Trist, M.C., of the 11th Welsh Regiment, was
wovmded, but remained on duty.
258
SALONICA AND AFTER
an advance along ravines to right and left of it. The
Greek troops were taken to their line of departure by a
body of guides from the 2nd King's Own. Preceded
by a heavy barrage (and accompanied by two sections
of the 83rd Trench Mortar Battery) they soon breached
the front line, and within two hours had taken their
first objectives — the line Doiran Hill, Teton Hill and
Hill 340. Shortly after nine o'clock they pushed on up
the slopes leading to Grand Couronne, their principal
objective being the strong work known as The Orb, just
above The Hilt. The 1st Regiment got there and held
it for a little while, but it had to be abandoned owing
to our ill-success to the left. At smaller cost than our-
selves, the Greeks had advanced their line in places over
1,500 yards, and were able to hold most of their gains,
Doiran Town being one of them. Some 700 prisoners
also remained in their hands.
While all this was going on the Cretan Division, sup-
ported by the 28th Division, on the east side of the lake,
had advanced across the broad plain — some six miles
wide at this point — to attack the Bulgar positions at
the foot of the high Belashitza Range, and if possible
to turn the lake from the north. Advancing from the
foot of the Krusha Balkan Hills, under cover of dark-
ness, they went forward over the plain, formed up under
cover of a railway embankment, and from here started
for the enemy positions, the strange sight being seen of
Greek company commanders leading their men mounted
on little ponies. It was a difficult operation, which
began in the darkness and continued in hot sunshine
across the open plain over which the enemy had a per-
fect view. By half-past seven the strongly defended
village of Akindzali had been carried by assault. The
main Bulgar line was not reached until late in the after-
noon. There was some heavy fighting there and the
254
VICTORY
line was breached in two places, but it was impossible to
think of holding on against the artillery fire directed
against them. Nothing could now be gained by press-
ing the attack, and the troops were ordered to with-
draw.
On the whole the situation remained " as you were,"
although we had captured some important ground on
the centre and the right. And as we found out later the
enemy's losses were also heavy, chiefly from our artil-
lery.
But the tale of sacrifice was not yet ended. All day
long our artillery hammered the enemy positions. What
was left of the 66th Brigade was withdrawn and the 65th
Brigade (Brig.-Gen. B. J. Majendie), very weak in
numbers, were brought from a camp where they were
under observation for influenza, to take their places.
They consisted of the 9th King's Own Royal Lancasters,
the 8th South Wales Borderers, and the 9th East Lanes.
To take the place of the Greeks in the left centre,
three battalions of French Zouaves were brought up,
and during the night occupied the trenches near the heap
of rubble that goes by the name of Doldzeli village. On
the right of the western half, the 77th Brigade (Brig.-
Gen. W. A. Blake) of the 26th Division (12th Argyll and
Sutherlands, 8th Royal Scots Fusiliers and 11th Scottish
Rifles) took the place of the 67th Brigade. The 1st and
2nd Regiments of the Seres Division were to attack
again on the right, from their new line, their objectives
being The Orb and The Hilt.
The second day was much the same glorious but tragic
story, with some variations. To the Scotch Brigade fell
the task allotted to the Welsh Brigade the day before.
The Zouaves were to attack parallel with them and
then, swinging left, attack the Pip Ridge direct up its
steep eastern side — a most forbidding task — while the
255
SALONICA AND AFTER
65th Brigade attacked the ridge along its crest. But the
Zouave attack never developed at all, there being much
confusion in their trenches due to the Bulgar barrage,
and from the first the Scots found themselves with their
left in the air and open to flank machine gun fire.
Attacking up over the corpse-strewn way of the day
before, the Scots, after heavy fighting and resistance,
took Sugar Loaf and The Tongue. Finding nobody on
their left they consolidated this position, which the
Bulgars counter-attacked three times. The enemy
were driven off with heavy loss. The Greeks on the
right had now reached The Orb and The Hilt, but fol-
lowing this time (about nine o'clock) there was much
confusion.
From the heights of the Pip Ridge and the nearer
eminence of The Hilt, a storm of machine gun bullets
was poured on the Scottish troops on The Tongue. The
Greeks were now streaming back from their advanced
positions. As a result of the non-development of the
Zouave attack, the 9th East Lanes, were sent up to
support the Scotch troops on the left, being diverted
from any attack on the Pip Ridge. Gallantly led by
Lieut.-Colonel J. A. Campbell, D.S.O., who was twice
wounded, they reached the position known as The
Come, but found further advance impossible owing to
wire and heavy fire. As the Scots were unsupported
on either side, steps were now taken to withdraw them
from The Tongue. At this time at least thirty machine
guns were concentrating on them. The Scottish Rifles
and Royal Scots got back in good order, but before the
Highlanders could withdraw the enemy had enveloped
their left flank, and they had great difficulty in getting
away, the Bulgars pursuing them with heavy shell and
machine gun fire. Again the dust had largely lifted,
and the enemy had an easy target. Severe losses had
256
VICTORY
be^n inflicted on the Bulgars during their fruitless
counter-attacks. But the Argyll and Sutherland High-
landers had lost seventy-five per cent, in casualties, and
the other two Scottish battalions fifty per cent, each.*
This time the attack along the Pip Ridge was carried
out by the 9th King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment.
Owing to the failure in the left centre a message was
sent to them not to advance at all, but it reached them
too late. P. 4j. was empty, but on reaching the wire at
P. 4. they found the trenches heavily manned and the
air full of machine gun bullets from all directions. The
attack was persisted in and gallantly led by Captain
C. M. Whitehead, M.C., who had already been twice
wounded. But only a few men were able to enter an
advance trench, and the survivors were withdrawn to
the friendly shelter of Jackson's Ravine. In this attack
Lieut .-Colonel B. A. Jackson was wounded.
By mid-day on the 19th our two attacks had been
pushed to their utmost — and failed to dislodge the
enemy from either of his major positions. The British
casualties in the two days' fighting were 3,871 killed,
wounded and missing, t Fortunately most of the
wounds were caused by machine gun fire, and many
were comparatively light, and when the advance came
two days later over a hundred of our wounded men were
* Lieut. -Colonel R. Falconer Stewart, D.S.O., of the 12th A. and
S. Highlanders was killed. Lieut. -Colonel G. W, G. Lindesay, of
the 8th R.S.F., was wounded, and Major Scougal, who was in tem-
porary command of the 11th Scottish Rifles, was killed. Major
Scougal left his work as a missionary in China to join up, and always
insisted on being in a fighting regiment.
t It is interesting to compare with these the losses sustained by
the French and Serbs in carrying the Sokol-Vetrenik Ridge. The
17th French (Colonial) Division had 1200 killed and wounded; the
122nd Division about 500 killed and wounded, and the Drina Divisior
about 200. The other Serbian Divisions sustained very small casual-
ties. It will be seen, therefore, that the holding attack at Doirar
was a much more costly operation than the break-through on the
Serbian sector. A French Colonial Division consists generally of
six white and three black battalions.
257 S
SALONICA AND AFTER
recovered. The casualties of the 3rd Greek Regiment,
who attacked between our own troops on the first day,
were 1,350 ; the losses in the other two Regiments were
proportionately heavy. Against this the Bulgars had
suffered 4,600 casualties, including the 1,200 prisoners
taken, and in their case a large proportion of their
casualties were caused by heavy shell fire. When it is
remembered that the average strength of our battahons
was 400 rifles, it will be seen how heavy was the toll
taken. Our poor fellows lay thick up on the roof of
Pip Ridge, and on the right the track of the heroic
dead ran almost up to the summit of Grand Couronne.
There was no question of attacking further. We did
not possess the men. There was nothing to do but to
hold on to what we had gained. On the night of the
19th the Zouaves went into the trenches on Horseshoe,
we not having sufficient troops available to man them.
The Bulgars had received a severe hammering, and for
four days their troops had been practically without food,
cut off by our artillery fire. But the Bulgars still lay
on their ridges, looking down, and one wonders what
our men must have felt as they were withdrawn into
reserve. In four furious battles, in 1917 and 1918, they
had tried to carry those rocky heights, and they had
little to show for it but the loss of most of their com-
rades. It is unlikely that they thoroughly understood
why the British should have to fling themselves against
the Doiran fortress. The bitterness of defeat and
wasted effort must have lain heavy on their souls.
Their spirit had been simply magnificent. *' Rather
than miss the opportunity for which they had waited
three years, officers and men remained in the ranks
until often they dropped from sheer exhaustion," said
General Milne in his dispatch. And it all seemed to
have led to nothing.
258
VICTORY
And then came the magic change — the great reward.
By the 21st the Serbs had forged so far ahead that they
had cut the vital Bulgarian communications on the
Vardar. Our aeroplanes, humming constantly over
the enemy lines, reported great signs of movement to
the rear, with dumps blazing and exploding. Could it
be that the impossible had happened ? It really
seemed like it. That night the Zouaves creeping for-
ward up the Pip Ridge reported that the trenches there
were empty. By Sunday morning, the 22nd, the in-
credible news was known to everybody. After two and
a half years' occupation of that mighty fortress the
enemy was at last abandoning it. The news ran through
the tired and depleted British forces like lightning. And
then gradually the meaning of it all came to them.
Victory ! Their sacrifice had brought its reward.
Alas that all their comrades lying so stiffly on those
peaceful, undulating slopes might not share that
moment with them !
259
CHAPTER XIX.
The Pursuit.
The whole line moved forward, and though victory was
in the air it was in many ways a sad sight to look upon
"all that was left of them" pressing in pursuit;
skeleton Brigades of a few hundred tired men, many of
them weak with fever, with a long string of transport
following behind. These the battalions which had
ambled through a pleasant campaign ! Our troops
marched unmolested up the heights they had battled
so hard to gain ; examined the great dugouts with their
many Bulgar dead, and at the summit turned to look
down on the positions which had for so long been their
abiding place, which they had now left behind for
ever.
It was now the turn of our aviators, and they exacted
a terrible revenge. In common with the rest of the
Salonica Forces, very little had been heard of them at
home. In activity and dash they were far and away
ahead of anything else on the Balkan Front. Perhaps
if they had been merely a good second we should have
heard more of them. But their superiority was so
obvious to anybody who knew anything of the results
obtained on the Balkan front that little was said about
the Allied aviators at all.
They had helped all they could in the battle, flying
at heights of less than three hundred feet on contact
patrols, in and out of the clouds of dust and smoke,
maintaining contact with the infantry while themselves
260
THE PURSUIT
being hundreds of feet below the enemy machine gun-
ners on the Ridge and Grand Couronne. And now they
sailed in to administer punishment. The retreating
Bulgarian Army was offering targets such as aviators
dream of when they are sleeping badly. Horse, foot
and guns were streaming up the narrow, precipitous
road — the only practicable line of retreat — leading over
into the StiTunitza valley, into Bulgaria. Our airmen,
like avenging eagles, swooped down on them, dropping
bombs at low heights and firing thousands of rounds
from their machine guns. For ten days, while the
Bulgar retreat continued, this work went on. Guns,
motor-cars, transport wagons, every kind of vehicle was
abandoned in the hilly roads and passes as the aero-
planes came humming over. And all this was accom-
plished without the slightest sign of opposition from
the enemy aviators. Our own flying men had so
thoroughly worn them down that following the aerial
combats of the 18th, during the first battle, only one
enemy machine was encountered up to the cessation of
hostilities, and this was promptly driven down.
Fitted with a specially strong wireless apparatus, one
of our D.H. 9's cruised constantly over the country
through which the enemy was retreating. Whatever
the observer saw that was good to look upon he
promptly wirelessed back to the aerodrome at Janesh,
and from there machines were sent at once to bomb it.
To and fro they went ail the time, like homing pigeons,
bombing or machine-gunning dumps, camps, convoys
and troops on the roads. These were often black with
fugitives and traffic and very great execution was done.
In the Kosturino Pass the retreating enemy was scat-
tered time after time, and men, transport and animals
blown to bits. Wagons were lifted off the road and
flung down ravines. But the greatest execution of all
261
SALONICA AND AFTER
was done in the narrow Kresna Pass, a wonderful defile
through which the Struma River comes down from Sofia,
and up which the Struma Army was escaping. Here, as
elsewhere, our aviators flew as low as 20 feet above the
fugitives, machine-gunning constantly, and killing hun-
dreds. This target was sixty miles from the most ad-
vanced aerodrome, and with mountains of over 5,000
feet between.
In those hectic days of aerial pursuit, our aviators
dropped just short of 20,000 lbs. of high explosive on
the retreating enemy, and fired 30,000 rounds of
machine gun ammunition on them. And only the com-
ing of the Armistice saved the Bulgars from further
unlimited punishment of the same kind. They would
have been harried and scattered and bombed all the
way to Sofia, and they would have had no reply to it.
For over two years our aviators in the Balkans
worked under a very great handicap. They had to be
content with what machines were left over at home,
and on these had to face enemy aviators flying greatly
superior machines. It was only that wonderful and
mysterious " something " which marks the British
aviator out from all others wliich enabled them to
more than hold their own. Even the great flying circus
of Richthofen himself came to Salonica. On February
27th, 1917, twenty fast German machines suddenly ap-
peared over the Summer Hill camps and bombed them
heavily, causing many hundreds of casualties. This
squadron caused much trouble during the two or three
months it was on the Balkan Front, but with the assis-
tance of the R.N.A.S. our flying men tackled it at
every opportunity and brought down a number of
machines. Nearly every flying day, for years, they
were out bombing the enemy dumps, making them-
selves a terror by day and night, and the later immu-
262
THE PURSUIT
nity of Salonica and the British area was due to their
constant and devoted efforts. They cannot be praised
too highly for the splendid work they did. And gradu-
ally their machines improved, until in November, 1918,
the Army Commander was able to write of them, "Once
adequately provided with up-to-date aeroplanes our
pilots rapidly gained command of the air, and have
succeeded in accounting for eight hostile machines for
every one of our own missing." The crown of all their
work came in the final offensive ; it was at once their
greatest achievement and their reward. They swept
the enemy from the air, and brought terror and disaster
among the retreating columns. Never once had they
refused battle. And at the end they found no enemr
of their own kind with which to fight.
From Monastir to Doiran the pursuit was now going
on — Serbs, British, French, Greeks and Italians all
pressing and harassing the enemy. The story of the
Serbian pursuit is one of the most romantic chapters in
military history. Treading their own soil they forged
ahead unceasingly. Mahogany coloured men to begin
with they became, as the pursuit went on day after day,
as white as wax. For weeks on end there was never
enough to give them a square meal ; they went ahead so
fast in front of the transport. There was no bread, and
flour had to be served out, which was made into sticky
" dampers " when fuel could not be found. They were
once told that it was impossible for both food and
munitions to reach them, and being asked to choose,
asked for the munitions. So they pushed on, living on
the country — which had next to nothing to give them.
The strange sight was seen of thousands of Bulgar
troops, complete with their officers, coming down to
surrender to the Serbs as they advanced. The Bul-
garian armies were smashed into three portions. Bul-
263
SALONICA AND Af^TER
garia capitulated — and still they pushed on. There
were Germans and Austrians still to fight before their
country was cleared. Veles, Uskub, Nish — the towns
of Serbia passed one after another into their hands.
And finally they entered Belgrade itself, masters once
more in their own capital. They reached there on
November 1st, forty-five days after the line was broken
at Sokol, having covered in that time well over three
hundred miles, and fighting most of the way. It was a
magnificent achievement and the world would have
thrilled to it but for the fact that just then the world
had too much to think about.
The British troops followed hot on the heels of the
retreating enemy, and we were the first to enter Bul-
garia, this honour falling to the Derbyshire Yeomanry,
who for three years had kept up their patient watch on
the Struma. They led the troops of the 16th Corps
under Lieut. -General C. J. Briggs, whose troops now
comprised the 26th and 27th Divisions, the 14th Greek
Division and the Lothians and Border Horse. The
12th Corps, on the right, under Lieut. -General Sir
Henry Wilson, now comprised the 22nd and 28th Divi-
sions, the 228th Brigade, the Cretan Division, the 2me
his Zouaves, and the Surrey Yeomanry.
Our pursuit now took on a fantastic shape. While
the cavalry and infantry of the 16th Corps, overcoming
strong opposition, advanced along the Strumitsa
Valley, into Bulgaria, the 22nd and 28th Divisions,
together with the Cretans and Zouaves, made a com-
bined attack on the towering Belashitza Range, which
was still strongly held by the enemy. The Bulgars
were entrenched on summits nearly 5,000 feet high.
The depleted 22nd Division began to climb the precipi-
tous slopes of the mountain wall which for so long
had seemed to them, looming behind the Doiran heights,
264
THE PtTRSUlT
the final barrier to all progress. For years they had
looked on them, swathed in a blue mist, infinitely far
away, and now they were climbing up goat tracks to
the rugged summits. Our progress up the range met
with considerable resistance, and once near the summit
there followed three days of confused and difficult
fighting for the various peaks. Had the enemy still
been what he was only a week before it would have
been impossible for our troops to win those towering
strongholds. But he was now a beaten enemy, fighting
only to gain time. One by one he abandoned the peaks,
and we were on top of the range and over. We cap-
tured five guns up there, and much material. The 8th
South Wales Borderers, of the 65th Brigade, specially
distinguished themselves in these difficult operations.
On September 28th the Cretan Division was ordered
to sweep the Belashitza Range from west to east, one
regiment to make its way along the crest and another
(together with the 228th Brigade) to take a parallel
course down the Butkova Valley, five thousand feet
below. To the north of the range the troops of the
16th Corps were making their way in the same direction.
In three lines we were advancing to cut off the enemy
forces on the Struma.
After looking at the Rupel Pass for so long across
the valley of the Struma we were now outflanking it
from the west. The Bulgarians were streaming up
through the pass and on through the narrower defile of
the Kresna Pass, where our airmen were causing such
havoc. Two days before this, down through the con-
fusion and the slaughter, the Bulgarian peace envoys,
M. Lyaptcheff, Minister of Marine, General Lukoff,
Commander of the 2nd Army, and M. Radeff, had passed
on their way to Salonica. And when our advanced
troops were only fifteen miles from the Rupel Pass,
265
SALONICA AND AFTER
whose capture would have cut off many thousands of
Bulgarian troops, word came that an armistice had
been signed at Salonica at 10 p.m. on Sunday,- the 29th,
and that hostilities would cease at noon on the Monday.
The aeroplanes, with their fresh loads of bombs, were
retained in the hangars, and as if by magic the sound
of war died out among the mountains.
Bulgaria had capitulated unconditionally. There was
a general idea at one time, largely fostered by the Bul-
gars themselves, that her defeat was largely "political."
On the contrary, there could not have been a more
decisive military defeat. The Bulgarian front had been
broken into three pieces, and was on the point of being
smashed into fragments, and the various parts had no
hope of re-uniting to form a homogeneous front. Under
the shock of danger the Bulgarian army had gone to
pieces. Its situation following the opening of the offen-
sive was by no means desperate, but it had utterly failed
to recover itself, as so many other armies had done dur-
ing the war. The Allied surprise was not strategical but
tactical. The Bulgars knew an attack was coming,
but failed to gauge both its direction and its weight and
once the first shrewd blow was delivered they — like
some over-estimated boxers — fought wildly, and finally
went utterly to pieces. Never once were they within
measurable distance of staying the avalanche of defeat
once it had set in. Nowhere could they throw in a full
reserve division (and here we see again the value of the
British holding attacks). Their reserves came into the
fight by regiments, and each one as it came up was
" mopped up " in the irresistible advance, or joined
the others in retreat without even coming into action.
The difficult lateral communications of the enemy had
always been his one great handicap, and the Allies,
once the chance of victory had come into their grasp,
266
THE PURSUIT
exploited this weakness to the utmost. An army of just
on half a million men was broken, bustled, harried,
pursued without relaxation, and finally beaten to its
knees, with its country already invaded.
On the far left the so-called 11th German Army — a
Bulgarian Army heavily staffed by Germans — made at
first a desperate resistance and so consummated its own
destruction. The French cavalry entered Prilep on
September 28rd, the Serbs were forging further ahead,
and the French pressed on to Uskub. The 11th Army
was cut off, its only possible retreat now being through
Albania. The German Staff, seeing the hopeless con-
dition of affairs, behaved in true German fashion, and,
first cutting all telegraphic and telephonic communi-
cation, fled in their motor-cars, leaving the Bulgarians
to extricate themselves as best they could. The Bul-
garians continued to resist strongly, and even counter-
attacked, and for three days there was heavy fighting
on the heights of Sop, between Monastir and Kichevo.
But they were now a lost Army. When the Armistice
was signed the abandoned Bulgarians refused to believe
it. They were practically surrounded and quite with-
out communications with the rest of the Bulgarian
forces for two days, and only consented to believe in the
Armistice when a Bulgarian officer was sent from Sofia
by aeroplane to explain the situation. Then 11,000 of
them surrendered to the French and 9,000 to the
Italians. The French, with the Serbs, Greeks and
Italians under their command, took 77,000 prisoners,
including 8 generals and 1,500 officers; 850 guns, 10,000
horses and 20,000 cattle and sheep. The final captures
of the Allies amounted to 100,000 prisoners and over
2,000 guns, with an immense booty of all kinds. The
British were in Bulgarian territory, and would have
taken thousands more prisoners from Struma but for
267
SALONiCA AND AFTER
the signing of the Armistice. The fighting went on with-
out cessation for twelve days following the break
through. The Bulgarian Armies were disunited, routed,
scattered. They could not re-form. Their military
situation was hopeless. They surrendered uncondition-
ally because there was nothing else for them to do. The
Germans could no longer help them, and they could not
help themselves. The first prop of the Central Alliance
had snapped before the onslaught of the Balkan
Armies.
268
CHAPTER XX.
.... And After.
And after? Well, everything happened very shortly
after.
The British forces had some extraordinary adven-
tures following on Bulgaria's capitulation. They were
first of all ordered to co-operate with the French and
Serbs against Austria, and Widin on the far Danube
was their first objective. We were already on the
move, and the faces of our men were set northwards,
when, by one of those brusque changes which emanate
from Allied War Councils and make the private soldier
wonder whether he is the sport of a gigantic game, our
men were turned to march eastwards on Turkey,
General Milne having received instructions to take
command of the Allied troops operating against that
Power. This advance began on October 10th. Less
than a month before few people knew that there was to
be an offensive on the Balkan Front. And now Bul-
garia was out of the war, and we were marching on
Constantinople. History was being made at lightning
speed. But one shock of success followed so swiftly on
another that the world could not realise all that was
happening. Allenby's smashing success in Palestine ;
the Balkan corridor cut, and Turkey left to her own
devices; Haig and his victorious armies driving ever
forward in the West — there was too much wonderful
news in the newspapers for the public at home to digest.
They found the pibce de resistance of the banquet—
SALONICA AND AFTER
the Hindenburg Line, Cambrai and Le Cateau — quite
enough for their appetite and only toyed with the en-
tries and savouries from the Near East. The imminent
elimination of Turkey from the war — the ardent desire
of all the Allies in 1915 — was now an event discounted
in advance.
But shrouded in its usual fog of silence the B.S.F.
was finding the investiture of Turkey no easy matter.
The roads in Eastern Macedonia leading to the Turkish
frontier were practically non-existent ; at the best they
were merely mud tracks. The railway between Doiran
and Seres had been largely destroyed, and could not
be used in any way. Here our experience in road
making and our excellently organised mechanical trans-
port came to the rescue again. An Army without these
advantages could not have concentrated on the Turkish
frontier in double the time taken by the B.S.F. The
22nd Division trekked down the Seres Road, along the
valley to Stavros, and from there were transported in
seventeen destroyers to Dedeagatch, the small Bulgar-
ian port. The Navy did wonderful things in clearing
mine-swept areas, and in assisting in the transfer of
troops and stores. In less than twenty days, in spite
of the enormous difficulties of moving troops, we had
concentrated the 26th and 22nd Divisions and the 122nd
French Division along the River Maritza, the Turkish
frontier line. At Mustapha Pasha we were all ready
for an immediate advance on Adrianople. In less than
twenty days we had moved the troops 250 miles, and
were using the poor little ports of Kavalla and
Dedeagatch as bases. It was quite a striking feat.
Meanwhile at Mudros, the port of the big, bare island
of Lemnos, a great Allied fleet was concentrated. For
some time past the power of mischief which lay in the
Russian Black Sea Fleet, now in German hands, had
270
. . . AND AFTER
been taken into consideration. A sortie from the Dar-
danelles with the Go eh en at the head of the Russian
ships was always a possibility, and we had nothing in
the iEgean capable of standing up either to the Go eh en
or the Russian Dreadnoughts. (We did not know then
to what a state of inefficiency the Bolsheviks and the
Germans had reduced the Russian ships.) The French
had no big ships so far East. Consequently the
T enter aire and Superh, sister Dreadnoughts, came out
from home to Mudros, where up to that time our biggest
ships were the pre-Dreadnoughts Lord Nelson and Aga-
memnon. The British Naval Forces were under the
command of Vice- Admiral Sir S. A. Gough-Calthorpe.
And soon after the arrival of our two big ships, the
warships of France, Italy, and Greece began to concen-
trate on Mudros. By the end of September some hun-
dreds of war vessels of all kinds — battleships, cruisers,
destroyers, aeroplane-carriers, oil ships, store ships,
sweepers, patrol launches, and the rest — were lying in
the great harbour. Turkey began to feel very alone
and friendless. She knew of the formidable prepara-
tions going on by sea and by land to exact the payment
for her misdeeds, which must follow as the night follows
the day on the Balkan victory. Her leaders knew what
had happened in Palestine, even if the people in the
capital did not. And the " traditional friendship " for
France and Britain began to re-assert itself — ^now that
the German game was lost. Turks who whispered that
it was time to try and patch up an arrangement with
the Entente were no longer in danger of instant ex-
tinction. The two chief evil genii of the Turkish Em-
pire, Enver and Talaat, judged it wise to disappear,
with as much money as they could carry. A new
cabinet was formed with tendencies moderated to suit
the hour. Various envoys, more or less official, began
271
SALONICA AND AFTER
to filter from the Asia Minor coast, across the Mge&n,
to prepare the way for others, and to find out what
crumbs of magnanimity could be picked up from the
table of the Allies. Some of them saw the formidable
naval preparations at Mudros, and, impressed, were
allowed to go back to spread the news. And finally
came the real envoys. They went to Smyrna by rail,
drove some distance along the coast, were picked up by
H.M.S. Liverpool and brought to Mudros. They were
Raouf Bey, Minister of Marine, Reched Hikmet Bey,
Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and Lieut. -Colonel
Saadullah Bey, of the Turkish General Staff. They
were accommodated on board the Agamemnon and
from the port-holes of their cabins looked up and down
vistas of warships, and across serried rows of warships.
There was quite enough to make them think. And on
October 30th the Armistice was signed on board the
Agamemnon, the first clause of which was : " Opening
of Dardanelles and Bosphorus, and secure access to the
Black Sea. Allied occupation of Dardanelles and Bos-
phorus forts." Turkey's grasp on one of the world's
key geographical positions was at last unloosened — let
us hope for all time. The inviolate straits, up which
no foreign warship could sail without the express per-
mission of the Sultan's Government, were thrown open.
The second prop was knocked away. The breach in
the enemy ring made by the Balkan Armies was widen-
ing and widening. Even Germany began to see that the
game was up.
Following the elimination of Bulgaria the Turkish
Empire had fallen without a blow — if we except our
aeroplane raids on Constantinople. Our troops were
called off the Maritza line, which they had taken up
with so much sweat and trouble. The 26th Division
went up through Bulgaria to the Danube, and the 22nd
272
. . . AND AFTER
trekked back to Stavros. Ordered to march on Austria,
then sent to Turkey, then brought back again ; weeks
of marching on bad roads and bivouacing in mud — no
wonder the man who shoulders the pack and carries the
rifle doubts at times whether those who guide his move-
ments really know what they do want. A sore heel
or a strap that pinches on the shoulder, and miles of
muddy roads ahead — these are not the things that help
in a calm and proper appreciation of what lies behind
the apparent unreason of his movements.
On November 12th the Allied Fleets passed up the
Dardanelles. There had been delay owing to diflicul-
ties in sweeping up the mines — a dangerous task which
our unassuming trawler skippers and their crews tackled
with their usual efficiency. But short as that delay
had been in the eye of history — a mere flicker of time,
an instant gone before it was perceived — tremendous
things had happened to the world while the Fleet was
waiting for the " all clear " from the sweepers. Aus-
tria, yielding to the imperious message of events, had
capitulated, and a few days later the evil Colossus her-
self, Germany, bowed to the inevitable — while hoping
for better luck next time. On the morning of November
11th I read Marshal Foch's historic telegram posted up
in the anteroom of the naval camp at Mudros. People
read it languidly and said, "Well, well." A few
trawler skippers playing solo whist while waiting for
lunch opined that Germany had done it only just in
time to escape a " damned good hiding." Nobody
seemed elated or excited. The earth had thrown a
somersault — the firmament had cracked — Germany was
definitely beaten ! And yet nobody seemed inclined to
shout " hooray," and I did not see one single person
shake hands with another. Out in the harbour the
impassive Fleet did not shriek with a single siren, nor
27S T
SALONICA AND AFTER
speak with the voice of a single gun. Mudros is a dull
place; a place which wears down high spirits, and
deadens the soul. No doubt that was the reason for
the general apathy. It could not be, surely, that while
London was cheering itself hoarse with joy and relief
there was something in the air of Mudros which enabled
us to see beyond the excitement of the moment ; which
foreshadowed what may come to be regarded as the
greatest error of judgment in all history — that we
should have stayed the avenging sword at the very
moment when the Brute was finally at our mercy ?
And this cataclysmic crumbling of the might of our
enemies; this consummation of all that we had been
fighting for (and sometimes a little despairing of) during
four long years had come within a little over six weeks
after the first breach on the Balkan Front. The final
props had gone, and we could look on the wreck and
ruin of what had once seemed too powerful a structure
even for Might with Right to conquer.
But all the same Mudros did move a little in its sleep
on that day of the Great Armistice. In the afternoon
we heard that the Fleet was certainly moving up to
Constantinople next day. I went on board the Aga-
memnon that night, was given excellent quarters by its
excellent Captain, and shown the famous table on which
the Armistice with Turkey was signed.
The Fleet moved out of Mudros harbour at four
o'clock on the morning of the 12th, and by nine we
were off Cape Helles. There in the cold, leaden light
of an unpleasing November morning was the tragic
Peninsula; the River Clyde, from which our troops
had poured at the first landing ; the repellent shore of
V. Beach, ugly and unpleasant as earth could possibly
be; the ruined fort of Seddul Bahr, and, far off, the
rounded crest of Achi Baba. Everybody on the ship
274
4 » »
AND AFTER
was silent as we passed " this corner of a foreign l^nd
which is for ever England " ; this bare and narrow
patch of earth which holds such tragic and glorious
memories for our race. For very many on board it
was their first sight of the Peninsula, and all gazed at
the shore with an intensity of expression which showed
how deeply they were feeling, and spoke in low tones
as they indicated this point or that. The general de-
meanour was that of somebody who had suddenly en-
countered the grave of an old friend. And all our
thoughts ran on much the same lines. There on shore
was the first tragic chapter of a great epic, and the
ships we were now on, steaming majestically up the
Straits, represented its triumphal end. This, and not
the withdrawal in 1915, was the true end to the Dar-
danelles campaign.
Preceded by two destroyers and by new high-speed
sweepers just out from England, the Superb, the flag-
ship, led the way up the Straits, followed by Temeraire,
Lord Nelson, and Agamemnon, and with a tail of light
cruisers and destroyers stretching far behind. The
French Fleet was not yet in sight, and behind them
were the Italians and the Greeks. On shore we could
see parties of our men of the 28th Division, who had
just been put on shore to garrison the forts, waving
to us as we passed. The leading battleships seemed to
fill the Straits, and we must have looked a brave sight
to those on shore. Past Hamidieh fort, with its 14-inch
guns, and then the bend past Chanak, and here, as the
straight line of great ships suddenly crooked into an
elbow, one could look ahead and astern and see all
the line, and what a gallant sight we made. It was
good to see the string of Whitef Ensigns fluttering here,
where for so many centuries the barbarous power of
the Turk had been all-powerful. The flag whieh means
275
SALONICA AND AFTER
liberty for all, which meant '' the freedom of the seas "
long before ignorant or ill-disposed parrots discovered
that high-sounding catchword, had taken the place of
the flag that stands for deceit and oppression.
And next morning at eight o'clock, as quiet as mice,
and with no thunderous broadside to announce the
coming of the conqueror, our great ships were lying in
line off the Sultan's Palace at Constantinople. It im-
pressed us who were on the ships to see the White
Ensign flying there. But there were certain people on
shore to whom it meant infinitely more. Some of them
stood drawn up on the quay, waiting for the British
General, Sir Henry Wilson, to come ashore. They wore
slop suits of a curious baggy cut, and caps or wide-
awake hats, and many of them had pinched faces. They
were British prisoners, survivors from Kut and else-
where, and they had known in full measure all the hell
that Turkish cynicism and neglect, or active Turkish
cruelty, could mean. And up on the high Galata Tower
were others looking down with hungry eyes as the ships
came up from the Sea of Marmora into the Bosphorus ;
British officers, these, who up to a fortnight before had
been treated like dogs in the foetid gaols of old Stam-
boul, but suddenly found that a magic change had come
over everything, so that those who were harsh or dis-
dainful became fawning and amiable, and then
announced, with many bows, that liberty was theirs.
And to these the White Ensign fluttering down below
there, over the waters that know so much of tragedy
and cruelty, meant the deliverance from all evil.
Since that day the men of the B.S.F. have scattered
far and wide, and have taken the flag to lands they
never dreamed of seeing. The quagmires of Serbian
mountain passes and the squalor of little Serbian or
Bulgarian towns in mid-winter ; the ostentatious new-
276
. . . AND AFTER
ness of Sofia; the broad Danube, and Bucharest; the
beauty of the Bosphorus ; Batoum, Tiflis, and the flat
shores of the Caspian — all these they have known.
Already Salonica and Macedonia must seem like the
echo of a dream — a long and bad and vivid
dream. Their work there is done, and the
B.S.F. has ceased to be, and belongs only to history.
But the memory of Macedonia will never fade, and in
after years they will look back on it all, and let their
minds roam through a thousand scenes and incidents, a
little surprised, perhaps, that in looking backwards the
ugly and unpleasant grows dim, and their thoughts dwell
chiefly on the pleasanter side. They will think of the
Vardar wind, which scorches and parches in summer,
and pierces to the bone in winter — but they will think
also of the Struma Plain with its wonderful variegated
carpet of wild flowers in early Spring, and its fields of
crimson poppies, or of the Krusha Balkan hills in the
warm golden sunlight of autumn. What does Tiadatha
say?
** There was blue smoke curling upwards
From a company headquarters.
And he saw some soldiers bathing
In a pool beside the village —
From below the voices reached him.
In the honey-coloured sunshine.
And beyond the line of trenches.
Just beyond the wooded foothills
Lay the smiling, open valley.
Threaded by the Hodza Suju,
By the sandy Hodza river.
Bright as mackerel in the sunshine.
Brighter than a string of opals."
Salonica with its dirty crowded streets, its cheap
tawdry amusements and unclean restaurants ; the Staff
Colonels and M.T. officers in imposing cars ; the nurses,
pretty and otherwise — English, Australian, Scottish
and French ; the sunsets over mountain and plain ; the
wonderful pictures of Olympus seen down the funnel
277
SALONICA AND AFTER
of Venizelos Street on those startlingly clear evenings
of winter ; the cheerful times in mess or canteen ; the
dust and mules along the Karasuli-Gugunci road ; the
Serbs; the baggy trousered peasants of all kinds and
colours ; the thin starved ponies of the Greek transport
columns; the ladies of the White Tower, the Odeon
and the Skating Rink; the bumps on the Monastir
Road ; the rumbling lorries ; the eternal growl of gun
fire; the "crumps"; the night patrols; the happy
days at Summer Hill ( !); the long-delayed mails from
home, and the joy of receiving them; tlie aching,
maddening longing for leave ; the Fire and The Balkan
News ; the ration rabbit and the chlorinated water ; the
misery and depression of malaria and dysentery; the
happy days between cool sheets in hospital — all these,
and a thousand other things, will blend into one plea-
sant picture : " When we were out in Macedonia." And
perhaps even the terrors of Pip Ridge, Grand Couronne
and the Jumeaux Ravine will bring their compensations,
for She will be all the kinder for knowing of them, and
He will be able to say with the Moor of Venice : —
** She loved me for the dangers I had passed
And I loved her that she did pity them.'*
And now that one has come to the end one finds
that there still remain many things that might be talked
about. The shooting trips in the marshes, for instance,
with the ducks and geese whirring over against the
last, faint glow of a winter sunset; the beauty of
Macedonia's many lakes ; or Vodena, with its tumbling
waters, in Springtime. But it is too late and, in the
lingua franca of the camps, the time has come to say
Finish Johnny.
276
APPENDICES
THE WORK OF THE 16th WING, ROYAL AIR
FORCE.
The Royal Flying Corps, now Royal Air Force, was first represented
in the Balkans by No. 17 Squadron, Major F. N. Fuller being in
command. This Squadron disembarked at Salonica on July 7th,
1916, one flight being sent to Avret Hisar to work with the XII.
Corps, the remaining flights working with the XVI. Corps. During
September one flight moved up to Lahana, the remaining flight
being located at Salonica. On January 1st, 1917, Major J. H.
Herring, D.S.O., M.C., took over the command of the Squadron.
On September 20th the personnel of No. 47 Squadron, No. 17
Balloon Section and 16th Wing Headquarters arrived at Salonica,
and 16th Wing, Roj^al Flying Corps was formed with effect from that
date, with Lieut. -Colonel G. W. P. Dawes in command.
On October 20th the flight of No. 17 Squadron at Avret Hisar was
relieved by a flight of No. 47 Squadron, who proceeded to Janes.
Later in the month another flight of the same Squadron moved to
Janes, the third flight proceeding to Kukus, and subsequently to
Snevce. This Squadron was commanded by Major C. C. Wigram
until relieved on December 23rd, 1916, by Major F. F. Minchin, M.C.
No. 17 Squadron worked wholly for the XVI. Corps from October
20th, 1916, and new aerodromes were occupied at Orljak and Marian.
The types of machines used at this time were B.E. 2c's, A.W.'s,
De Havilland 2's and Bristol Scouts.
Reconnaissances were carried out daily whenever weather per-
mitted, and artillery co-operation, bombing and photography were
also undertaken on a large scale. Contact patrols were carried out
on a small scale at first but later developed in accordance with the
requirements.
No. 17 Balloon Section were moved up to Orljak, and later to
Kopriva, ascents being undertaken whenever the weather was favour-
able. A good deal of hostile activity was reported on, and new
defences when located were also reported. The enemy displayed a
good deal of activity, both aerial and artillery, against this balloon,
and during its stay on the Struma Front it was attacked a large
number of times by hostile machines, being shot down in flames
on three occasions. In order to endeavour to stop this an old unser-
viceable balloon was put up with a heavy bomb in the basket. This
bomb was connected to the ground, and was calculated to bring
down any machine approaching within 100 yards. On November 21st,
1917, a hostile scout attacked, and approached close to the balloon,
279
SALONICA AND AFTER
when the charge was fired, causing the machine to break in half. As
anticipated, it was discovered that this machine was piloted by Lieut.
Von £schwege, the German star pilot on this front.
On February 12th, 1917, Nos. 26 and 27 Balloon Sections disem-
barked at Salonica, together with Headquarters No. 22 Balloon
Company, Major J. O. Davis being in command. Both Sections and
Headquarters No. 22 Balloon Company moved into the XII. Corps
area, the balloons carrying out observations until the cessation of
hostilities,
Lieut. W. S. Scott, pilot. No. 17 Squadron, left Salonica Aero-
drome with a Greek officer as observer, on December 10th, 1916, in
search of a suitable landing ground in the vicinity of Drama, with a
view to landing an Agent. On the return journey the machine was
attacked by a single-seater biplane, which was driven down by Lieut.
Scott, and seen to crash by the Greek observer.
A week later Lieut. Scott succeeded in landing an Agent at
Fotolievo, in the Drama Valley. When over the valley the pilot
shut off his engine at 6,000 feet and planed down to 200 feet, at
which height mist was encountered, and the centre section wires
were broken on landing. As it was impossible to see more than five
yards around the machine, it was assumed the Agent got away
unobserved.
The same pilot again landed an Agent in the same vicinity on
January 1st, 1917, and it was thought that he got away unobserved.
For these acts of gallantry Lieut. W. S. Scott was awarded the
Military Cross.
On December 23rd, 1916, Captain W. D. Bell, M.C., No. 47
Squadron, left the Aerodrome to bomb a hostile observation balloon
near Furka. On returning to our lines, after dropping his bombs,
he was attacked in the rear by an Albatross two-seater. The hostile
machine dived on the B.E. 12 and lost some 200 feet in height,
whereupon Captain Bell dived, and as his engine was full on he soon
caught up the E.A. (enemy aircraft). When about 50 yards behind.
Captain Bell opened fire with his Vickers gun and fired about 20
shots, by that time being right up to the enemy, the faint puffs of
smoke from the hostile observer's gun being distinctly seen. At
this point the E.A. dived and began to slip and spin, and some part
of a plane becoming detached, the machine crashed to earth in no-
man's-land.
Towards the end of February, 1917, a German Bombing Squadron
commenced to be extremely active on this front, as many as 20
machines taking part in raids on Salonica, Janes Aerodrome, Hadzi
Junas Aerodrome, Karasouli, and other targets. This latest type
German Bombing Squadron was a considerable source of trouble to
the British machines.
The Royal Naval Air Service were asked to co-operate against
this Squadron, and they sent over a number of Sopwith Fighters
from Mudros, which, with the assistance of our scouts, were made
into a Composite Fighting Squadron and were located at Hadzi
Junas. Their duty was to engage the hostile formation whenever and
wherever possible. The R.N.A.S. also sent over a squadron of
bombing machines, and a counter bombing offensive on a large scale
was inaugurated.
280
APPENDICES
During the various engagements between the German Bombing
Squadron and our scouts, one twin-engined bomber was attacked and
came down in our lines, although it was afterwards ascertained that
it had been hit by A. A. fire. Three others were also brought down
over the enemy lines. A Halberstadt Scout was forced to land in
the French lines after having been hit by French A.A. fire.
The German Squadron came to the Macedonian Front from
Bucharest, where it had been employed against the Roumanians and
Russians. Part of its equipment was a special train, which was used
for transferring the personnel and stores rapidly from one point to
another, the machines flying to their destination. This train was
located alongside the aerodrome at Hudova, and during the many
times the aerodrome was bombed, both by day and night, a
direct hit was obtained on the train.
On May 10th it was observed that the Bombing Squadron and train
had left the aerodrome at Hudova, and it was subsequently re-
ported as being identified in Belgium and being used for bombing
London.
One of the most successful pilots in the early days of the Royal
Flying Corps in Macedonia was Captain G. W. Murlis Green, and
the following are examples of his fights : —
Captain Green left Orljak Aerodrome on January 4th, 1917, in
pursuit of an Albatross two-seater. He caught it up over Likovan,
and in the first burst fired hit the petrol tanks and wounded the
hostile observer. The E.A. dived and landed in our lines at Mekes.
On January 14th the same pilot and Lieut. F. G. Saunders, both
flying B.E.12's, engaged an Albatross two-seater of the then latest
type and forced it to land near Lahana, the machine being captured
intact. It was later flown down to Salonica by Captain Green,
escorted by two British Scouts. A camera captured with this
machine was used afterwards with good effect.
On the morning of February 12th, Captain Green and Lieut.
J. C. F. Owen left Orljak Aerodrome on B.E. 12's to try and
destroy a hostile Fokker Scout at Drama Aerodrome. When our
machines were at 7,000 feet over the aerodrome the Fokker was seen
to be climbing, and both of our pilots dived at it and attacked at
about 50 yards range at a height of 6,000 feet. Unfortunately
Captain Green's gun jammed, and while this was being rectified
Lieut. Owen fought the Fokker at 2,000 feet, but apparently had his
engine or tank hit by machine-gun fire, as he was obliged to land
near the aerodrome. The Fokker landed beside Lieut. Owen's
machine and the pilot jumped out and ran towards Lieut. Owen, but
stopped short suddenly, evidently being covered by the latter's
automatic pistol. Lieut. Owen set fire to his machine which blazed
up and was completely destroyed. A large number of soldiers from
the aerodrome and town ran towards the machines. Capt. Green
waited over the aerodrome for twenty minutes, but as no further
action was taken by hostile aircraft he returned to our lines.
In the afternoon of the same day Capt. Green again set out on the
same mission, this time carrying one 100-lb. bomb. The bomb was
dropped and fell about twenty yards south of a hanger. When at
4,000 feet over the aerodrome an Albatross was attacked, but it
dived and landed, being placed in a hangar. Another Albatross was
281
SALONICA AND AFTER
fot out of a hangar and took off, but no action was taken by the
'okker. At this point the engine of the B.E. started to "miss, and
as both main spars of the top starboard plane had been shot through
by A. A. fire, a start was made for Lahana. The Albatross followed
as far as Tolos, where Capt. Green attacked and drove it down, but
was himself obliged to land at Monhui, just inside our lines. The
ashes of Lieut Owen's machine and the burnt ground around it
were particularly noticeable, and there was nothing but small parts,
such as separate cylinders, etc., seen lying about.
On March 18th Captain Green attacked one of six twin-engined
bombing machines over Karasouli. He attacked from 30 feet below,
and after firing one drum of S.A.A. the enemy machine dropped
eight bombs at our machine, all of which fortunately fell clear of its
tail. Petrol was seen to be flowing out of the bottom of the fuselage
of the E.A., and a second drum of S.A.A. was fired at the port
engine, which stopped, the starboard engine also subsequently stop-
ping. An attempt was then made to place a third drum on the
Lewis gun, but the drum was shot out of the pilot's hdnd. The
enemy machine was seen to fall in no-man's-land, turning over on its
back when landing, where it was afterwards shelled by our artillery.
Shortly after this Captain Green again encountered a formation of
five twin-engined bombers and attacked one from below at 20 yards
range, firing three drums of S.A.A. from his Lewis gun. A large
amount of petrol streamed out of the enemy machine, and one of the
observers was seen to be hanging over the side. The four remaining
machines then attacked our B.E., and as the pilot had no more
ammunition he returned to our lines at 2,000 feet, being pursued by
the hostile machines.
The following morning the same pilot, when on patrol, observed
an Albatross, which he attacked from about thirty yards below at
10,500 feet over Lake Doiran. The petrol tanks and observer were
hit, and the hostile machine dived very steeply. It eventually got
into a spiral and landed on one wing, turned over and caught fire.
For these acts of gallantry and devotion to duty Captain G. W.
Murlis Green was awarded the D.S.O., M.C. and Bar.
A large number of combats took place during the time the hostile
bombing squadron was active, many instances occurring of a single
British machine attacking anything up to 18 E.A. As an instance
of this, 2nd-Lieut. J. L. Bamford, who was flying a B.E. 12, on the
occasion of a hostile raid on Salonica, on February 27th, with com^
plete disregard for self, flew into the middle of a formation of 18
enemy machines, and attacked four in succession. Unfortunately a
Halberstadt Scout, which he failed to see, attacked him from above
and shot through his petrol tanks, causing the engine of the B.E. to
st()p. A good landing was made, however, on the aerodrome at Janes.
On March 27th, 1917, at about 18.00 hours ten enemy machines
attempted to bomb Snevce. They were at once engaged by our
machines, and all but one were driven back over the lines before any
bombs could be dropped. The machine which succeeded in drop-
ping its bombs caused a few casualties. After an engagement the
enemy squadron leader fired a coloured light, evidently with the
intention of calling the E.A. together for a combined retirement,
and they were pursued almost as far as Hudova Aerodrome.
282
APPENDICES
In connection with the bombing offensive inaugurated by the
British to counteract the hostile activity, many targets were success-
fully bombed. On April 25th our formation, when on its way to
attack an enemy dump, met the hostile squadron evidently on their
way to bomb some point in our lines. A general fight took place,
and the E.A. were forced to return to their aerodrome. Unfortu-
nately, one of our machines was brought down in flames, but against
this one of the twin-engined bombers was shot down, and was con-
firmed to have been destroj'^ed by fire. Our machines succeeded in
bombing suitable objectives before returning to our lines.
One of the targets bombed by our formation during the bombing
offensive was a large hostile dump at Livunovo. Two large fires were
started there, and the flares were visible for a distance of 20 miles.
Confirmation was later obtained that a large amount of stores, etc.,
were totally destroyed.
On April 2nd, 1918, Major S. G. Hodges, M.C., took over the
command of No. 17 Squadron from Major J. H. Herring, D.S.O.,
M.C., and Major F. A. Bates, M.C., assumed command of No. 47
Squadron, vice Major G. D. Gardner, M.C., with effect from August
1st, 1918. Major W. R. B. McBain, M.C., commanded No. 150
Squadron from formation.
Bombing was persistently carried out right up to the signing of the
Armistice.
On January 21st, 1918, a request was received for assistance in
operations against the Turkish cruiser Goehen, which was reported
ashore off Nagara, in the Dardanelles, after a raid in the ^gean, in
which the Breslau was sunk by mines. Two hours after receipt of
the request three machines left Salonica for Mudros, where they
arrived safely. The following day three additional machines pro-
ceeded and also reached Mudros safely. Two raids, each of three
machines, were carried out on the Ooehen, and another in the evening
on Galata Aerodrome, 9 miles N.E. of the Goeben's position.
Two days later a request was received for a further flight of
bombers, and a reply was sent that four machines could be spared
and would proceed as soon as possible. It was also asked if a
machine could be supplied capable of carrying a 450-lb. depth charge.
No machine in this Wing was capable of doing this, but on the
French Aviation being approached they agreed to place an "A.R."
at our disposal, provided we could supply a pilot. This was agreed to,
and on January 28th three R.F.C machines and the A.R. reached
Mudros in safety. The French machine was piloted by Lieut. W. J.
Buchanan, of No. 17 Squadron, this being the first occasion he had
ever flown this type of machine. It had been impossible to send the
machines sooner, owing to unfavourable weather.
On January 23rd three raids with all six machines were made on
the Goehen,' several direct hits being obtained. Machine-gun fire
was also brought to bear on searchlights during the last raid.
The following day one raid was made, during which a formation
of enemy scouts were engaged and driven off. During the same
evening the Royal Flying Corps Flight bombed the Goehen at ten
minutes intervals, and a night reconnaissance of Galata Aerodrome
was also carried out.
Fr©m January 25th to 28th strong gales and clouds prevented anv
288
SALONICA AND AFTER
flying, so the machines were kept ready to take off at short notice,
in the event of the weather clearing.
On the morning of the 29th preparations were begun for a morning
raid with light bombs, the object being to distract the attention of
working parties on the Goehen, while a submarine attack was made.
However, before the machines got off a report was received that the
Ooehen was no longer ashore, and our machines accordingly returned
to Salonica, all landing safely.
On April 1st, 1918, No. 150 Squadron, composed of single-seater
fighters, was formed in the field. The Scout Fighters of No. 17 and
47 Sauadrons were transferred to this Squadron, and later all three
Squadrons were made up to strength. The machines were S.E. 5a's,
Bristol monoplanes, and Sopwith Camels, and from its formation
No. 150 Squadron helped considerably in bringing the aerial superi-
ority of the Balkans into the hands of the Allied Armies.
With effect from midnight, June 19-20th, Lieut .-Colonel G. E.
Todd took over the command of 16th Wing, Royal Air Force, Lieut.-
Colonel G. W. P. Dawes, D.S.O., proceeding to England.
During the month of June, 1918, the enemy displayed considerable
activity in the air and several times crossed the lines at nijrht.
On receipt of a message during the night of 27th-28th June
stating that hostile aircraft were over our lines, Lieut. G. C.
Gardiner left the aerodrome at Kirec on a Bristol monoplane at
about 01.00 hours, and encountered an E.A. over Lake Ardzan. He
dived on it firing several bursts, but lost sight of it owing to being
dazzled by flares dropped by the enemy machine. Lieut. Gardiner
then proceeded towards Salonica and encountered another E.A.
outside the town over Hortiach, which was approaching from the
East. When attacked this E.A turned and was followed by our
scout, who fired short bursts whenever possible. A running fight
was kept up, the E.A. making in the direction of the Struma
river, where it dropped several bombs, evidently intended for
Salonica, in the vicinity of Gudeli Bridge and Kahara. When
over Porna the engine of the monoplane cut out owing to shortage of
petrol, but Lieut. Gardiner glided to our lines and landed by the
aid of a grass fire near Nigrita.
No. 150 Squadron had a large number of combats, the following
being a few examples : —
During a bomb raid on Cestovo dump on June 1st, 1918, a
formation of twelve hostile scouts were encountered. These were
engaged by Capt. G. G. Bell and Lieut. C. B. Green, flying
S.E.5a*s, and during the fight which followed the former fired a
burst of twenty rounds into a Siemens Schuckert Scout, which
burst into flames. Two E.A. then got on to Capt. Bell's tail and
were attacked by Lieut. Green from close range. One was seen
to go down out of control with smoke coming from its centre
section. The fight was then continued imtil another E.A., coming
head on for Lieut. Green, pulled straight up and rolled over on
its back, going down out of control. A third S.E., piloted by Lieut.
F. D. Travers, then joined in the fight. He engaged and fired
a long burst into an enemy scout, which dived vertically out of
control and crashed N.W. of Bogdanci.
While on an offensive patrol on June 12th, 1918, four of our
284
APPENDICES
scouts encountered a formation of 8 E.A. near Smokvica.
Lieut. D. Davies, on a Sopwith Camel, dived on a D.5 Albatross
Scout and shot it down in flames. He then engaged another and
sent it down out of control, it being seen to crash and burst
into flames. Lieut. C. B. Green, on an S.E.Sa, also attacked a D.5
Scout, and after a short burst the E.A. went down and crashed in a
field S.S.E. of Pardovica. He also engaged a second machine,
but owing to engine trouble the combat was broken off. Lieut.
C. G. Gardiner, on a Sopwith Camel, attacked another D.5
Albatross and followed it down to 2,500 feet, when it suddenly
dived out of control and was lost to view. This latter machine was
subsequently reported to have crashed. All our machines returned
safely.
Lieut. D. A. Davies, on a Sopwith Camel, was attacked by five
E.A. Two of these attacked from above, and Lieut. Davies turned
sharply to the right, when the two E.A. collided and went down.
Several other Scouts engaged the Camel on the return journey,
and, finally, Lieut. Davies shot one down out of control over the
vicinity of Balince.
When returning from escorting a bomb raid on Miletkovo dump
on September 3rd, 1918, four of our S.E.5a's sighted six enemy
machines engaging one of our monoplanes over Lake Doiran at a
low altitude. The S.E.'s were joined by two Sopwith Camels, and
all six machines dived from 13,000 to 1,000 feet and engaged the
six E.A., but not in time to save the monoplane, which had been driven
down into Lake Doiran, The pilot, Lieut. J. P. Cavers, was seen
struggling in the water, whilst the E.A. were diving and firing
at him. Lieut. Cavers was apparently drowned and was reported
missing.
Lieut. Travers, on an S.E., then singled out an enemy machine, and
after firing a long burst into it from close range, it fell out of
control and crashed at the N.W. corner of Lake Doiran. This was
also seen by other of our pilots. Lieut. Travers was then attacked
by another E.A., whereupon he turned sharply round and fired a
good burst into it and sent it down out of control. Capt. G. C.
Gardiner, on a Sopwith Camel, followed this machine down and saw
it crash east of Cerniste. Lieut. Spackman also saw this one crash.
Capt. Gardiner then returned, and when at 2,000 feet, observed an
E.A. which he pursued, firing both guns. The E.A. dived down
to fifty feet, when a further burst sent it crashing down to the
ground close to the hospital at Cerniste. Our machine was so low
at this point that Capt. Gardiner had to zoom the hospital tents to
clear them.
In the meantime, Lieut. W. Ridley, on an S.E.Sa, attacked
another E.A. flying at low altitude just north of Lake Doiran.
After a running fight, during which Lieut. Ridley fired 200 rounds,
the E.A. stalled and then spun into the ground, crashing about halt
a mile south of Cestovo.
In preparation for the operations begun on September 18th, 1918,
an unusually large number of reconnaissances were carried out, and
large numbers of photographs taken. A special photographic map of
the district between the Vardar Valley and the Belashitza Mountains,
comprising 1,250 photographs, was prepared, and many photographic
285
SALONICA AND AFTER
sheets were completed and forwarded to Corps Headquarters. Con-
siderable time was devoted to artillery work, large numbers of
registrations being carried out daily. Three bombing raids were
also carried out as preliminary to the offensive, the targets being
Hudova Aerodrome on September 14th, Demirkapu Station on the
15th, and Hudova Station and dump on the 16th. Good results
were obtained during each raid, though on the first day strong
Vardar winds made accurate bombing very difficult.
On the day of the attack four contact patrols were carried out
in conjunction with the attacking infantry, and messages were
dropped on Brigade and Divisional Headquarters. Owing to the
intense dust and smoke thrown up by the barrage, the machines
had to descend to between 200 and 800 feet in order to carry out
their mission, often flying below the tops of the Grand Couronn^
and the Pip Ridge, and were subjected to intense fire throughout.
One machine was brought down in flames by A. A. fire, the occupants
being killed.
During a patrol carried out to protect our contact patrol machines,
four of our scouts engaged a formation of between nine and fourteen
E.A. During the fight which ensued Capt. G. G. Bell, on an S.E.Sa,
got to close quarters and fired good bursts into one E.A., which
went down out of control with smoke issuing from the centre section.
Captain Brawley and Lieut. Hamilton got on the tail of another
machine, which finally went down out of control. These were con-
firmed by pilots of artillery machines.
It was probably due to these decisive combats in our favour that
the moral of the German flying officers was reduced to a low state,
as, from the morning of September 18th up to the cessation of hostili-
ties, only one enemy machine was encountered, and this was drivan
down to its own aerodrome.
During the battle our artillery machines played an important part.
Contact patrols flew over enemy trenches at very low altitudes,
observers on reconnaissances watched enemy movements, and our
bombers attacked trenches, camps and dumps with bombs and
machine gun fire. Patrols were kept up throughout the day from
dawn until dusk, and during September 18th and 19th no fewer
than 272 hostile batteries were reported active and countered by
our artillery. Several times active batteries were silenced by machine
gun fire from low altitudes. ,
A long distance destructive shoot was carried out on Divisional
Headquarters at Furka, successful results being obtained.
Continuous reconnaissances were carried out, and one of ourD.H.9's
was fitted with a special long-distance wireless with a hundred mile
range. This machine operated over back areas and enemy lines of
retreat, the messages sent being received with ease at the wireless
station near Janes. The object of this was to enable bodies of troops
and transport to be bombed with the least possible loss of time.
During the whole of the operations bombing was energetically
carried out, dumps, camps, convoys, and troops being repeatedly
attacked.
On September 21st machines on artillery and reconnaisance duties
reported that Tatarli, Cestovo, Furka, Cerniste and Hudova dump^
were in flames, and that ammunition dumps were exploding.
286
APPENDICES
Numerous fires were reported over the whole of the Vardar Valley,
and all day the Rabrovo-Kosturino-Strumica road was seen to be
packed with transport and troops moving northwards.
Every opportunity was taken by the Royal Air Force to bomb and
harass the retreating enemy.
The retreating troops and transport were followed up from the
time the retirement started. The roads running north from Rabrovo,
Kosturino, Strumica and Jenikoj were seen to be black with traffic
and were bombed continuously by our machines. As soon as the
machines had dropped their load of bombs and expended their
ammunition they returned immediately to the aerodrome for fresh
supplies, everyone showing the greatest keenness, and the fullest
advantage being taken of these exceptional targets. During this
period our machines came down to as low as 50 and 20 feet and fired
into convoys and bodies of troops.
The following telegram from Advanced 16th Corps testifies to the
enormous damage inflicted : —
" The routes from Cestovo Valley to Kosturino show signs of
the indescribable confusion that must have existed in the retreat
of the Bulgar Army. Guns of all kinds, motor cars, machine-
guns, rifles and every kind of war material abandoned. Dead
animals are strewn everywhere. Indicate that our R.A.F. must
have contributed largely to bringing about this state of things."
Also the following from the C.-in-C, British Salonica Force : —
"I desire to thank you and all ranks of the Royal Air Force
for the efficient manner in which their duties have been carried
out since the commencement of active operations and to express
my admiration of the skill and gallantry shown by pilots and
observers which have so materially assisted the success of
operations."
The most heavily bombed target was the Kresna Pass, which wa^
60 miles distant from the most advanced aerodrome, with 7,000 feet
mountains intervening. The shooting here was good, and on several
occasions whole wagons were seen to be blown off the road into the
ravine.
On one occasion one of our machines observing 12 guns of large
calibre on the road north of Kresna, came down to about 500 feet and
machined-gunned the teams, several men being seen to fall. This
machine was badly shot about by machine-gun fire. Confirmation of
this was received indirectly from the American Consul-General at Sofia,
who stated that he happened to be motoring along this road at the
time, and saw several of the oxen and drivers killed or wounded, and
incidentally had a narrow escape himself.
These same guns were to have been attacked next morning, but
escaped owing to the suspension of operations.
From September 21st up to the cessation of hostilities our machines
dropped 19,570 lbs. of H.E. and fired over 29,880 rounds of S.A.A.
on the retiring enemy.
To assist during these operations No. 17 Squadron Headquarters
and "C" Flight were moved to Amberkoj from Lahana on the night
of September 22nd, moving up to Stojakovo, in Serbia, on the 26th.
287
SALONICA AND AFTER
On October 2nd this Flight proceeded to a new aerodrome near
Radovo, east of Strumitza (Bulgaria), thus establishing the first
aerodrome of the Allied nations in an enemy country in Europe since
the commencement of the war.
Preparations were begun for a move northwards to the Danube,
but this order was cancelled, and a move was instead to be made to
the Turkish Frontier. The Flight of No. 17 Squadron was withdrawn
from Radovo, and on October 19th "B" Flight of No. 17 Squadron
was sent to Philippopolis. The roads were in an extremely bad con-
dition and it was necessary to load the lorries only lightly. A com-
posite Flight of two-seaters and scouts was also despatched to a
position near Gumuldzina, later moving on to Dedeagatch. Owing
to the rapid movement of the flights, communication could not be
established, so it was necessary to maintain communication by air.
Reconnaissances of the new area were carried out, and a new hostile
aerodrome was located, but no engagements with enemy aircraft took
place. The signing of the Armistice with Turkey being an accom-
plished fact, the Flights at Philippopolis and Dedeagatch were
withdrawn.
Total of enemy machines destroyed over lines 57
Total of enemy machines brought dovm in our lines ... 6
Brought down by balloon 1
Driven down out of control 35
Total
Number of British machines missing
99
28
Casualties.
Killed
Accidentally killed
Wounded in combat
Wounded by A.A. fire
Wounded, accidentally
Wounded, accidentally — since died ...
Wounded combat— since died
Wounded during bomb raid
Brought down over lines (P. of W.) ...
Prisoner of War — later died of wounds
Died in hospital
21
15
13
5
10
2
Total
81
The figures stated above for enemy aircraft brought down have ail
been confirmed. Many others were claimed to have been shot down,
but as confirmation was not forthcoming they are not included.
288
APPENDICES
II.
A NOTE ON MALARIA.
Malaria is due to the infection of man with a germ inoculated into
him by a bite of a mosquito, which has itself obtained the germ by
previously feeding upon a patient who has had malaria and who
continues to carry the germs in his blood.
The importance of malaria in an Army depends upon the large
number of persons infected rather than upon the number of deaths
which it causes, and upon the numerous recurrences of the disease
in the patient rather than upon the severity of any single attack.
It is a disease of continual recurrences tending to make the patient.
if he remains in the country, bloodless, debilitated, listless and
apathetic, diminishing his physical ability and capacity for work and
placing him from day to day under the ever present threat of a
sudden acute relapse.
An Army carrying out active operations in a malarious country is
certain to have a considerable number of cases during the first
season and, if the troops remain in the country, one has to reckon
during the following season not only with almost as many fresh
infections as in the previous year, but also with the added hospital
admissions due to relapses. The number of hospital admissions,
therefore, tends to increase year by year.
During 1916 it was possible to evacuate patients from Salonica
freely to Malta or England. In April, 1917, the submarine menace
compelled us to retain practically all cases in Macedonia, this
fact accounting for the increase in hospital beds and the decrease in
evacuations shown in the attached figures. This unavoidable reten-
tion of malarial patients in the country led to the existence of a large
chronically ill population which was fit for little except to circulate
between hospitals and convalescent depots, with perhaps an occa-
sional few days of duty, and it was to get rid of this population that
the *Y** Scheme was introduced in the beginning of 1918. Under
this scheme nearly 30,000 malarial patients were transferrewl to
England during the ten months ending 31st October, 1918.
It is evident from the introductory sentences of these notes that
preventive measures may be initiated in three directions —
Firstly, to protect the healthy man from being bitten by the
mosquito.
Secondly, to abolish the mosquito so far as possible, and
Thirdly, to cure or get rid of the chronic malarial patient who is
carrying the germs in his blood and by whom only can the mosquito
be infected.
Protection of the healthy man was carried out in every possible
manner by means of nets, mosquito-proof huts and dug-outs, special
shorts, gloves and head-nets, and ointments, obnoxious to the mos-
quito and, unfortunately, seldom less obnoxious to the user.
The mosquito was attacked chiefly by widespread attempts to get
rid of marshes and stagnant water of all sorts in which the insect
breeds, and by cutting down brushwood, scrub, long grass, etc., near
camps, in which the mosquito rests by day.
289
u
SALONICA AND AFTER
The record of this work in the Base and L. of C. area alone
furnislies some surprising totals. In oiling the surface of stagnant
water week by week a total of well over a million square yards was
covered; over 3G0,000 square yards of brushwood were cut; streams
were channelled and trenches cut or refreshed to a total of over two
million lineal yards; and close upon 10,000 pools were filled in or
drained.
Attempts to clean up the chronic germ carrier by means of quinine
were very disappointing, and it was found much easier to get the
patient out of the coantrj' under the "Y" Sclieme.
1. — Total Admissions ior Malaria.
\9\(i 29,591
19i7 63,396
1918 67,059
2.— Total Evacuated from Salonica (for Malaria, to England or
Malta).
1916 21,902
1917 7,298
1918 ... 3,257
3. — Maximum Numbkr of Hospffal Beds during the Summer.
)9Uy 11,500
1917 26,000
19i8 26,000
4. — MAxriUM NuMUFR of Malaria Cases in Hospital on anv One
Day.
1916 3,652
1917 12,947
1918 6,855*
* Accuracy invalidated by the epidemic of influenza in autumn.
5.__Total Days Sickness due to Malaria during the 12 Months.
1916 — *
19!7 1,273,480
1918 1,970,600
* Figures not available.
N.B.— The figures for 1916 refer to the 10 months ending 31st
October, 1916, and for 1917 and 1918 to the 12 monthc endinsr 31st
October, 1917. and 31st October, 1918. It should also be remembered
that in all cases the figtires for 1918 refer to an army very much
smaller in numbers than in the preceding years.
290
INDEX
A.
Abdul Hamid, 89
Admiral d'Artio:e du Fournet, 168
Agamemnon, H.M.S., 150, 271, 272,
274
Adrianople, 2G9
Akindzali, 254
Alchak Maliale, 238
"Aladdin," 118
Alexander (King), of Greece, 170,
181
Allied captures, 267
Ampliipolis, 72
Amphissa, 194
Armistice : With Bulgaria, 210, 266
With Turkey, 272
Army System. 145
ATiatioii, British, 259, 260
B
Balkan Armies, their r61e in the
war, 205
Balkan Nrws, 50
"Balkan Tap," 57
Badimal, 124
Base M.T. Depot, 96, 183
Belashitza Iianj?e, 217, 264
Beshik Lake, 112
Bestchinar Gardens, 93
"Birdca£?e," 17, 19, 27, 29, 160, 176
Bisliop of London, 153
Bisliop, Lient.-Col. B. F., 249
"Bluebeard," 123
Blake, Brio-.-Gcn. W. A., 254
Black Sea Fleet, 269
"Boiled Owl," Order of, 61
British effectives, 234, 242
British raids, 209
Bulgarians : Unwillingness to
attack, 203
Contemplated attack on British,
236
1916 Offensive, 210
Defeat, Scope of, 266
Bnraes, Lt.-Col. 1)., 2.)2, 253
B.S.F. Boxing Championship, 126
Bralo, 190, 193
Briirgs, Lt.-Gen. C. J., 264
British and Foreign Bible Soc., 9
Battalions, etc. : —
1st and 12th A. and S. High-
landers, 214, 231, 254
7th Berks, 9th Border Regt.,
10th Black Watch, 231
Buffs (2nd), 214
2nd Camerons, 214
10th Camerons, 218, 234
2nd Cheshires, 214
12th (:heshires, 246, 248
5th Connaughts, Derby Yeom.,
214
8th D.C.L.I., 231, 247
2/5th D.L.L, 123
10th Devon s, 231
2nd E. Yorks, 214
4th E. Lanes, 213
9th E. Lanes., 254
2nd Gloucesters, 214, 239
9th (7loucesters, 231, 234
10th Hants, 214, 239.
12th Hants, 231, 217
2nd King's Own, 253
14th King's Liverpools, 212, 234
2nd K.S.L.T., 214
8th K.S.L.L, 231, 246, 249
9th K.O.R.L., 231, 234
1st K.O.Y.L.L, 214
3rd and 4th K.R.R.C., 214, 234
12th Lanes. Fus., 212, 231, 234
291
INDEX
Battalions — continued
Leinsters, 214
2/20th London Regt., 231
Lothians and Border Horse, 264
13th Manchesters, 230, 284
2nd Northumberland Fus., 214
7th Ox. and Bucks. L.I., 225, 231
Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 214
3rd Royal Fusiliers, 214, 234
10th Royal Highlanders, 234
Royal Irish Fus., Royal Innis-
killing Fus., R. Irish Rifles,
2nd Royal Lanes. Regt., Royal
Munster Fus., 1st Royal Scots,
214
8th Royal Scots Fus., 231, 255
nth R. Welsh Fus., 213, 231, 247
1st Suffolks, 214
Surrey Yeomanry, 264
7th and 8th S.W.B., 231, 247,
258, 254, 265
Sherwood Rangers Yeo., 214
9th S. Lanes., 231, 246, 249
S. Notts Hussars, 184, 214
11th Scottish Rifles, 231, 254
Scottish Horse, 214, 234
Ist Welsh. 214
11th Welsh, 247
23rd Welsh, 123
7th Wilts, 21, 217, 231
11th Worcesters, 231
1st York and Lancaster, 214
Brigades : —
7th Mounted Bde. 8th Mounted
Bde., 201, 202
65th Bde., 230, 254, 265
66th Bde., 230, 246, 254
77th Bde., 251, 254
78th and 79th Bdes, 280
228th Bde., 264
C.
Campbell, Lt.-Col. J. A., 256
Cassander (King), 79
Casualties (at Doiran), 282
Chanak, 275
Christodoulos, Col., 162
Chalcis, 8
"Chocolate Soldier," 124
Clegg-Hill, Lt.-Col. the Hon. A.
R., 249
Comitadjis, 26
Comitadji, H.M.H. the, 60
O)ndouriotis, Admiral, 64, 165
Constantino, King, 15, 19, 22, 157,
203
Constantinople, 86, 269, 276
Consuls, Enemy, 160
Cx)rinth, Gulf of, 6, 190
Corps (12th and 16th) : 18, 264
16th, Dramatic Soc., 124
Croker, Maj.-Gen. H. L., 247
C.U.P., H6, 88
D.
Danglis, Gen., 64, 165
Dardanelles, 2T3
Dedeagatch, 269
Delphi, 195
Demir Kapu, 240
Deposition (of King Constontine),
171
Deunmehs, 85
"Dick Whittington," 118, 128
Dimitric, 75
Doiran, 16 28, 208, 209 245 (open-
ing of 1918 attack)
Doldzeli, 254
Dolina, 221, 226
Dudular, 67
Duncan, Maj.-Gen. J., 246
Dushan, Stephen, 136
Divisions : —
10th Div., 17, 27, 176, 201, 281
22nd Div., 18, 124, 126, 202, 218,
269
26th Div., 18, 123, 202, 218, 231,
269
27th Div., 18, 73, 75, 123, 126,
210
28th Div., 18, 123, 202, 214, 254
50th Div., 234
60th Div., 201, 231
66th Div., 234
17th French (Colonial), 240, 257
122nd French, 243, 257, 269
14th Greek, 264
Cretan, 247, 254
Danube and Drina, 241
Larissa, 238
Morava, 246, 250
Seres, 246, 250
Schu madia, 240, 243
Timok, 241, 244
Yugo Slav, 241, 243
292
INDEX
E.
B.F. Canteen, 24, 192
Egnatia Street, 91
Ekaterini, 24, 192
Enemy adrantages, 202
Envcr Pasha, 2T1
Errard, Lt.-Col., 239
Erskine, Lt.-Col. J. B. D., 250
Essad Paaha, 155
"Eril Eje," 221
Falconer Stewart, Lt.-Col. R., 257
Field Ambulances, 184
84th and 85th F.A. 118
Floca, 1, 22
Fiorina, 161
Forestier- Walker, Maj .-Gen . W . ,
288
Franchet d'Esperey, Gen., 239
French Club, 45
GaHipoli, 27
Gay, Maj.-Gen. A. W., 24T
Germans : With Bulgarian Army,
237
Surrender of 11th German Army,
267
Ooehen, 271
Gough-Calthorpe, Vice-Admiral Sir
A. S., 271
GomichcTo Pass, 211
Gramophones, 35
Granville, Lord, 166
Grand Couronn6, 41, 217
Greek Army, 171, 202, 236
Gugunci, 12a
Guillaumat, Gen., 126, 239
GuTesne. 113, 183
I*
Influenea^ 235
Italians, 29, 189, 211
Itea, 193
Jackson, Lt.-Col. B. A., 257
Jackson's Ravine, 225
Janesh, 74
Jews of Salonica, 84, 166
Judaeo-Espagnol, 51, 59, 88, 85
Jumeaux Ravine, 218
K.
Kaimakchalan, 107, 138, 212
Kalamaria, 181
Kara Bouroun, 160
Karasouli, 67
Kavalla, 162
Surrender of, 269
Kenali Lines, 212
Kilo Seventy, 41, 115
Kiredjkeui, 18
King George (of Greece), 89
Kopriva, 118
Kossovo, 136
Kotos, 78
Kosturino Pass, 260
Koziak, 244
Kresna Pass, 262
Kut (prisoners), 276
L.
Lahana, 114, 236
Langaza, 27, 65, 112
Larissa, 192
Lembet Road, 38
Likovan, 114
Lindesay, Lt.-Col. G. W. G., 257
Liverpool, H.M.S., 272
Lord Nehon, H.M.S., 271, 275
H.
HadjopoukM, Col., 20, 162
Hamals, 82
Hamidieh Fort, 275
Horseshoe Hill, 72, 128
HortiwJi, 27, 78
Macedonia, Mobilisation of, 114
"Macedons, The," 124
Macukovo, 209, 212
Macpherson, Brig.-Gen. A. D., 25J
"Madelon," 33
Majendie, Brig.-Gen. B. J., 254
208
INDEX
Malaria, 174, 235
Maritsa, River, 2G9
Marsh Pier, 96
Messina, 5
Milne, General Sir G. F., 77, 126,
154, 188, 235, 258
Misitch, Marshal, 139, 239
Moglenitza Range, 68, 213
Monastir, Capture of, 209, 211
Montagu-Bates, Brig.-Gen., 24C
Moschopoulos, Gen., 135
M.T. Units, Serbia, 107, 137
M.T., Work of, 178
Mules, 179
Murad II. 81
Mudros, 269, 273
Mustapha Pasha, 269
R.
Rendina Gorge, 74
Repoules, Mr., 134
Revolution, Greek, 157
At Salonica, 164
River Clyde, 274
R.N.A.S., 262
Road Making, 179
"Robinson Crusoe," 123
Ross. Sir Ronald, 187
Rouniania, 28, 167
Royalist officers, 162
Rupel Pass, 20, 41, 161
Russians, 28, 211
Rutter, Capt. Owen, 217
N.
National Defence, Army of, 163
Navy, British, 99, 119, 190, 202,
269
Nider, Gen., 171
Nigrita, 124
o.
Ochrida, Lake, 214
Odeon, 30
Olympus, Mount, 42, 47, 192
Orfano, 74, 110
Ostrovo, Battle of, 209, 211
P.
Parnassus, 6, 193, 197
Pasitch, Mr., 155
Peace Envoys, Bulgarian, 265
Turkish, 272
Petit Couronne, 209
Pip Ridge, 214
Pirspus, 6, 167
"Piccadilly Circus,** 47
Poets, 57
Presba, Lake, 209, 214
Prilep, 267
Q.
Quinine, 56
294
S.
Sabbati Cevi, 86
Sanitary Section, 145
Sarrail, General, 17, 20, 155, 160,
208
Scougal, Major, 257
Schenk, Baron, 157, 168
Serbs : —
Arrival in Salonica, 15
Attempt to save Serbia, 208
Losses in battle, 242
The advance, 262
Serbian Crown Prince, 155, 239
Serbian Slava, 135
Seres Road, 47, 64, 142
Sisters, 22, 237
Skra di Legen, 191, 210
Sokol, 34, 239, 243
Spies, 24, 26, 159
St. Denietrios, 81, 103
St. George, II. M.S., 155
St. George's Church, 103
St. Paul, 1, 153
St. Sopliia, 81, 89, 103
Stavros, 72, 111, 183, 269
Stepan Stepanovitch, Marshal, 138,
239
Struma, 28, 175, 209, 213
Strumitza, 260
Submarines, 203
Superb, H.M.S., 271, 275
INDEX
r
Talaat Pasha. 271
Taliinos, Lake, 2fi, 115
Taranto, 198
Tcmeraire, II.M.S., 261, 275
Tiadatha, Sonjr of, 149, 217, 277
"Tipperary," 33
Tortoise (Tortue) Hill, 41, 72, 218
Trench Mortar Battery, 83rd, 254
Tresina, 138
Trist, Lt.-Col. C. II., 251, 253
Via Egnatia, 44
Vodena, 278
Vole, 9
W.
Whitehead, Capt. C.
Wilson, Lieut.-Gen.
264, 276
M., 257
Sir Henry,
Y.
Uchantar, 46
Uskub. 267
U.
"Y" Scheme, 188, 191, 234
Yatman, Lieut.-Col. A. H., 251
Yenidje Vardar, 108
Y.M.C.A., 192
V.
Vardar, 28, 68, 237, 240
Vardar (wind), 277
Vasitch, Gen., 139
Venizeios. 22, 64, 132, 157
Z.
160
Zeppelin raids
Zouaves, 254
Zymbrakakis, Col.
164
*i<jr}
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