100 Years Ago - Salonika
SALONIKA
BRITISH TRENCH ON A SHRUB·CQVERED HILL
ROAODMAKING NEAR SALONIKA, ENLIVENED BY THE PLAYING OF A REGIMENTAL BAND
OFFICERS' MESS AT A NEW CAMPING-PLACE
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keeping-cool-at-salonika-tp6phv50w
Keeping cool at Salonika
The troops are authorized now to do all work in shirt-sleeves and shorts.
July 10, 1916
The daily activity of the artillery on the frontier was diversified today by an attempted German aeroplane attack on the French positions south of Doiran. One of the enemy machines which came under the fire of the French anti-aircraft batteries was brought down and fell in flames near the lake.
The rather novel Idea of a summer holiday for the troops in the field is being realized by the French during the prevailing heat, which, in treeless Macedonia, is very severely felt. Officers commanding units which are away from the frontier are ordered to arrange for ten men to have ten days’ suspension of work so that, while remaining, of course, with their regiments. all in turn will be allowed to knock off for that length of time and to live under conditions of agreeable repose, reading novels, smoking cigarettes and playing cards, as if they were staying at a holiday camp in peacetime. With proper organization the work of the various units will be carried on just the same, and there is no doubt that the measure will greatly benefit the health of the men.
It is an insidious characteristic of the climate of Salonika that in a hot summer like this it has most of the characteristics of the tropics, but, owing to its being situated in Europe, life is conducted as if nothing more torrid were to be expected than an English June. Sun-helmets, smoked spectacles puggarees, and light drill clothes, have all had to be adopted as the thermometer has climbed relentlessly higher.
The troops are authorized now to do all work in shirt-sleeves and shorts, and though it seemed curious at first to even sergeant-majors with collarless grey shirts wide open at the neck and the badges of their rank taken off their tunic and loosely tacked onto the arm, the effect on the whole is quite workmanlike.
For the troops at the base there is a great compensation in this weather, sea-bathing. The waters of this tideless Gulf, after receiving the refuse of scores of transports and warships for eight or nine months, make the Thames off Woolwich quite pellucid in comparison: but nevertheless the sea every afternoon has a pink fringe of bathing Tommies. Up-country men have in many places dug small plunge baths alongside the fast-dwindling streams, for the cleanliness of the English soldier is inveterate and is the standing marvel of the native people, whose personal ablutions often cease entirely with the bath given them at baptism. Lucky are the troops stationed near fresh cool waters
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-implacable-sun-c66k0wjzq
The implacable sun
You ought to see the insects here. As you walk a cloud of crickets, some four inches long and bright scarlet, rises up before you, and every tree and bush is full of insects, half-moth, half-cricket, which strum and whirr and grind out weird choruses
July 26, 1916
The following is from a letter written by an officer who is serving with the Cyclist Section at Salonika: The last 10 days have seemed like a hot inconsequent nightmare. I have a confused remembrance of long boiling days, long exhausting rides through a road four inches thick with sand and dust, finished by a troubled sleep and a constant fight with mosquitoes. We have arrived at a temporary halt - where, I cannot tell you, but it is known to be one of the loneliest places in the world. The road by which we came was before the war absolutely unknown to all but about three archaeologists; it is an old road and some of the most perfect and invaluable things have been found there since this Army came. Its natural desolation is almost incredible; there is no existing map which is more than approximately accurate even with regard to its main features. It winds over mountains, past lakes, and through gorges with imperturbable patience, never quite disappearing and never quite asserting itself.
The first night we left we expected an easy 15 miles mostly downhill. Instead we climbed straight off 1,000ft, making us 3,000ft up. The road was a mere ribbon of deep sand, out of which rocks peeped viciously. Imagine pushing a bike through that in a dying but still potent sun! I sweated till you could have squeezed a bucketful out of my garments. It was then dark, and we had to come down to sea level. We started by trying to ride. In a few seconds there was chaos, the gradient was terrific, and with the big weight on them the bikes could hardly be controlled. Men were collapsing into the ditch in all directions, and every now and then the road was missing or a mere “water course” of huge rocks. So we had to walk, and walk we did for three more solid hours, holding back the bikes. All the time we were dropping into a stifling, airless valley. We eventually camped at 3am, absolutely dead beat. The transport made terribly heavy progress behind us, broke down several times, and got in about 5. 12 hours for 18 miles!
We flung ourselves down and went to sleep, but almost at once that grim implacable devil, the sun came up and burnt us up again, and brought the flies with him. So we washed and ate and ran for shade, and slept a half sleep till lunch, tried to do the same after lunch, failed, and at 5.30 were off again. I started a cold that day; the others had sun heads and were irritable. We had a fairly easy ride that day, and found a fairly good camp near the lake, the home of hundreds of tortoises, and of every insect ever created. All the next day we lay in the lake, which was glorious; the shade temperature was 110. After two more long boiling days and long hot, but not bad, rides we came to a certain place. About 2 in the morning I was wakened by an annoying and peculiar hammering noise. I looked out and on all four sides of us lightning was cutting down in the most terrific sky. The noise was the men silently and feverishly hammering in their bivouac pegs. It was macabre to a degree.
Yesterday I biked 30 miles on a reconnaissance, going consecutively from 4.40 til 11.30 and from 1 till 4. Over that I will draw a veil. A hardened tough, who went with me, said it was the stiffest day of his life. I didn’t stick it so badly, but the sun after 8am is simply stunning. The quaintness, desolation and ferocity of the valley are marvellous. At one place we lost our way and went up a side track to a village for water. (Water is almost unobtainable anywhere; at the camp we have to go a mile and all there is is a tiny trickle which has to be fished out with a cup and then heated chemically; boiling won’t do!) The people in the fields either ran from us or at us. They have never heard of a cycle before. The water in my bottle actually got too hot to drink. Eventually an old Greek. armed to the teeth and with a face like a young Moses. showed us a well. Up on the hillside was a little heap of stones and out of the stones came a tiny trickle which saved our lives, and one tree, which helped also. Round the well were a series of Biblical figures with asses resting; below on the road a string of camels went by in a haze of heat and sand. Across the reeds and the river glared the most desolate, scorched brown plain, on which the half dozen trees which adorned it stood out in piercing relief. Splendid chaotic mountains ran down to it at every possible angle. Over all was the humming, drowsy silence of great heat, It was a picture I shall never forget - marvelously paintable, I imagine. It was the spirit of the place, the visualized spirit of this invincible, inhospitable land. We set our teeth and sweated the 18 miles back.
We get no news here, but a mail once a week, and the ironest rations. So if anyone remarks that the inactivity of the Balkan Army is extraordinary tell them that perhaps there are a few difficulties in the country they may not have thought of. You ought to see the insects here. As you walk a cloud of crickets, some four inches long and bright scarlet, rises up before you. Every butterfly I ever heard of skims around, and every tree and bush is full of insects, half-moth, half-cricket, which strum and whirr and grind out weird choruses. We caught two freaks, one the Buffalo cricket, the size of a rat, but much fatter and with a great curved horn, like a scorpion’s, for a tail. It is dark, but shines old gold in some lights; the Egyptians worship it, I believe. The other lives in a curious green yellow bush, the flowers of which it exactly imitates, its neck is a hard, yellow stalk, and its wings are leaves to all intents and purposes. You cannot distinguish it four inches away. A bug collector would go mad with joy here. My bed is always full of crickets, black ants, bees, and flies. The temperature is about 100 all day, but there is a breeze in the afternoon, and bathing in the evening in warm seawater.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/golf-in-salonika-3wk3rrhzs
Golf in Salonika
The tees, the rough, and the fairway are imperceptibly blended in a wilderness of rough moorland grass with sand and stones peeping through.
November 15, 1916
The golf course of the ----- hospital at Salonika does not come strictly within the denomination of a first-class course. Indeed, take it for all in all, it is probably the worst in the world.
Not that it is by any means without natural advantages. Give us Mr H S Colt and a few thousands of pounds and we will undertake to make of it something worthy the name. The soil, for example, is sandy; so much so that each of the six putting greens consists of a circle, about the size of a small flower bed, of bare sand beaten partially flat. Again, the course has a hazard. This is a nullah with broken and precipitous sides, which takes its sinuous way along a valley between two hills. This very morning the rain that had beaten so thunderously upon our tent at midnight was rushing down it in a torrent; but now by the afternoon the little river bed lies bare in the blazing sunshine and offers scope for the higher niblick play. Moreover, it breaks out here and there into tributary nullahs that go winding on their own small ways, so that at least one of the putting greens stands perched on the narrowest and most fiendish of Mesopotamies. One great short hole, however, does not make a golf course. The tees, the rough, and the fairway are imperceptibly blended in a wilderness of rough moorland grass with sand and stones peeping through. To the perfect player, to be sure, this should not signify, since the longest hole measures but little over 100 yards and the shortest 30, but it is an unappetizing circumstance.
The course is such a miniature affair that, though we set out to find it, we almost passed it by unawares. We stood on a slope and gazed in vain upon the wide prospect. Behind us the ground rose steadily to a crest strewn with grey boulders. In front it ran down to the white tents of the hospital. Away to the left was the harbour, and on its blue and shining waters the hospital ships that were to take people - fortunatos nimium - back to English courses. The only living things in the landscape seemed to be two nurses seated on a monticle, two pleasant specks of blue against the green. Suddenly a little below the nurses appeared three other figures. “He looks as if - Yes, by jove, he is addressing the ball!” cried one of us excitedly. “He’s missed the globe! “ shouted the other, and forthwith we ran tumultuously down the slope till we stood beside a green.
The three players, all in uniform and equipped with a single rusty iron apiece, were about to essay a carry of some 40 yards over two nullahs. Their three balls were each struck a severe blow on the head; two disappeared into the first nullah; the other jumped it only to fall with a resounding clang into a bully beef tin in the second. “We’re only beginners,” one of the three explained with engaging if superfluous modesty. If he was not a good player, he had that austerity of outlook, that love for the rigour of the game which stamps a man as something better - a good golfer. “Do you lose a stroke?” we asked, as he lifted and dropped. “No, two,” he replied proudly, and topped his ball in again, leaving the bully beef tin man to win in a conscientious seven.
if we had not already sent home for some clubs, the golf course would not, we confess, have encouraged us to do so. When the clubs come - and in our dreams we have already cut the string and watched the beautiful, spiral unrolling of the brown paper - when the clubs come, we say, we will disdain the niggling arts of the pitcher and the putter - we will not sordidly strive to win holes. Rather taking our wooden clubs in hand and distant Olympus as our mark will we hit vast swooping carries across the grassy spaces of the hills. It will probably be very bad for our driving, but how sweet to look forward to nevertheless.