Alan Palmer - The Gardeners of Salonika: The Macedonian Campaign, 1915-1918

p. 188

p. 198

p. 207

O N O CTOBER 5 TH 1915 two small transports steamed past Cape Paliouri, turned north-eastwards through the narrows off the mouth of the river Vardar, and dropped anchor off the breakwater protecting the Greek port of Salonika. Other transports and the British battleship Albion followed in the course of the morning, slipping in behind the hastily constructed anti-submarine nets to berth in the crowded rectangle of a harbour or send pinnaces to the east quay. The vessels were packed with men in khaki and steel-grey blue the troops of Britain and France were about to experience for the first time the frustration of warfare in the Balkans.

The British and French came to Salonika as neither allies nor enemies of the Greeks. It was a curious situation, without precedent at that time. The major European powers had been at war for over a year. Greece had declared herself neutral but the Greeks were well disposed towards their neighbours and former allies in Serbia, who were the first victims of Austrian aggression. It was this geographical proximity to Serbia that made Greek neutrality precarious. Serbia had no sea-coast; hence, if the Entente Powers (Britain and France) wished to send effective aid to the Serbs they could do so only through the largest port in Greek Macedonia, Salonika. Moreover, the Entente Powers considered that international law entitled them to send a military force to Greece since, when Greece won independence from Turkey in the early nineteenth century, a formal treaty had given Britain, France and Russia the right to land troops, by agreement among themselves, in case of violent upheaval in the Balkans. The British had, indeed, already set up a base in the Aegean at Mudros, on the Greek island of Lemnos, for operations against the Turks at Gallipoli. Now, in concert with the French, they sought to establish themselves on the mainland as well. For by October 1915 the position of the Serbs was becoming desperate. They anticipated an attack in the near future, not only from the Austro-Hungarian armies, but from the Germans and Bulgars as well. Only an inter-allied force could check an offensive of this magnitude; and the route to Serbia was by way of Salonika and the single track railway up the river Vardar. Yet how would the Greeks react to the landing of belligerent troops on their soil? Their prime minister, Venizelos, favoured the Entente and had promised the British and French every facility in Salonika; but it seemed unlikely that the provincial garrison commanders and local governors would continue to support him. I fear the Greeks even though they offer gifts: the sentiment with which Virgil credited Laocoon was expressed with less elegance but equal brevity by the senior officers arriving at Salonika. As the convoy moved up the Gulf, the glinting steel of the Krupp guns at Fort Karaburun looked ominous even if the troops manning the battery were Greek and not German.

Although it was a Tuesday and a working day when the transports sailed in, the waterfront of the Greek city filled with onlookers in the afternoon, for the habit of a siesta persisted, despite the cool wind that was blowing down the Vardar. Moreover , the arrival of the troops was not unexpected. On the previous Friday the destroyer Scourge had brought senior British and French staff officers to the port to make preparations for the allied troops. The town was full of rumours, speculation on the size of the force and its intentions. Some maintained that the newcomers would take over the administration of the city from the Greek authorities; others that they would move off within a few days into the mountains of Serbia. Salonika, which until three years before had been a Turkish garrison town, was accustomed to the presence of the military. Indeed, there were already two Greek divisions encamped on the outskirts, pledged to uphold Greek neutrality. Feelings about the imminent arrival of belligerent forces were divided, that first weekend in October. The civil administration was openly hostile, but the merchants and shopkeepers were uncertain. Occupying troops, with their highhanded requisitioning of buildings and transport, were a burden for some; but for others they were a source of profit. Everyone knew that the purchasing power of the poilu, and even more of the Tommy, was greater than that of the Greek militia. The bazaar-men and the brothel owners awaited the Allies, if not with open arms, then at least with interest. For, like everyone else in Salonika, they considered themselves by now connoisseurs of soldiery.

The observers along the waterfront (who included the German and Austrian and Turkish consuls) were far from impressed by their first sight of Allied military power. The British troops, the headquarters staff of the 29th Brigade and two battalions of Irish infantry some 1,400 men in all were an advance guard of the 10th Division. They were veterans of the Gallipoli campaign and, only nine weeks before, had stormed ashore in pitch blackness below the heights of Suvla, two hundred miles away. The Division reached Salonika under strength and battle-weary. Some men were wearing regulation serge, others were in shorts. A few had greatcoats, others tropical drill uniform. They had come without waggons and lorries, and were to be seen, in the fitful sun of the late afternoon, lugging their tents off eastwards from the harbour, puzzled and perplexed. Brought post haste from the peninsula of Gallipoli to the island base of Mudros they had, at once, been put aboard the ships for Greece. So swift had been the move that little regard had been given to their immediate requirements. The units of the French 156th Division, which had also been serving at Gallipoli, were in better shape, but they too had left their transport in Mudros for later shipment. Gradually, as vessel after vessel disgorged its human cargo amid rumours of political crisis in distant Athens, the whole landing assumed the unmistakable air of an afterthought, and the attitude of the Greeks hardened. It was a dismal beginning.