The Salonika campaign’s so boring!

No, this isn’t a sudden cri de couer after twenty years of reading about and studying the Salonika campaign, but rather an acknowledgment of the tedium experienced by many of those who served in Macedonia between 1915 and 1919. This was the subject of a fascinating podcast I recently came across.

The Combat Morale Podcast aims

… to provoke debate and discourse around what
shapes and influences the morale and motivations of combatants in war.

It seeks to answer the eternal question; what makes people fight (or not) in armed conflicts?

Since January 2022 – over two seasons – the podcast has covered many different conflicts and aspects of combatants’ morale. Almost exactly a year ago the Macedonian campaign was in the spotlight with an edition entitled ‘Managing Boredom in Salonika WW1’ with Jake Gasson. Members may recognise the name, as Jake presented a talk at the 2022 annual meeting on the Italian experience of the Macedonian Front. Following study at Pembroke College, Oxford, Jake is now a post-doctoral research in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London.

It’s a fascinating discussion on an important aspect of the campaign, which I heartily recommend. There are plenty of other fascinating topics covered by the podcast – the First World War is well represented – but I also especially recommend Dr Spencer Jones on ‘Combat Motivations in the Boer War’.

No wonder they look fed up – they didn’t even have ‘The New Mosquito’ to read! In a dugout in the Struma valley, November 1916. © IWM (Q 32529)

On the subject of podcasts, I will also mention a super series from The Rest is History on the reasons for the outbreak of the First World War, which has begun with a detailed look at the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo one hundred and ten years ago. Expect lots of Balkan shenanigans!