The summer edition of the Society’s occasional newsletter has just been published and sent to almost 600 subscribers – both members and non-members of the Society. This, and past editions, can be read here.
If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to the newsletter here.
Those with an interest in the Salonika Campaign will no doubt be familiar with the life and work of Sir Stanley Spencer, and Sandham Memorial Chapel – and the chapel’s enduring significance as a place of commemoration and remembrance. If so, you may well be interested in two events taking place this summer and in the months ahead.
One of the most frustrating things about researching Salonika records at the National Archives is that they haven’t been digitised for easy online reading and text searching. It would make life so much easier if records – such as company war diaries – were digitised and readily available online.
As things stand, the only way to read the documents you need is to:
Admittedly, it’s not an unpleasant experience. The staff at Kew are unfailingly friendly, helpful, and efficient, and it’s a lovely place to spend a day. However, once you get those photos home, they aren’t always easy to read on a screen and searching the text for key terms is impossible. Your only alternative is the hard graft of spending long, tedious hours decoding the handwriting and typing it up manually. That is a real slog. But this is where artificial intelligence can, possibly, lend a hand.
Earlier this year, I travelled to Kew to view the war diaries of the 17th Field Company, Royal Engineers. I photographed each page on my phone -a task that took about an hour – leaving me with dozens of images of tricky handwriting that my computer couldn’t search.
Rather than transcribing everything by hand, I uploaded the images to Google Gemini and asked it to extract the text while preserving the tabulated format. What would normally have taken days took roughly two hours instead. While not the most thrilling task, it was a huge timesaver compared to manual entry.
On the whole, the results were impressive. In several cases, the AI managed to read handwriting I’d found completely impenetrable. Yes, it did make the occasional mistake and, like me, it struggled with some decoding. At a guess, I’d say it was about 95% accurate.
It’s not a complete solution as there’s still time needed for checking the transcription but, if you are facing a similarly laborious task, using AI to transcribe photographed records could be an effective and time-saving way to work.
110 years ago today, on 28 June 1916, something quite unusual happened in Britain… across the country people marked Kossovo Day, a Serbian national day to remember the 1389 Battle of Kossovo, when the Serbs fought the Ottoman Empire. Apparently, although the battle didn’t have a clear winner, it became over the years a symbol of Serbian resistance and hope for freedom.
So where is the British connection? Well, during World War I, Serbia was seen by many in Britain as a plucky underdog that had stood up to the mighty Austrian-Hungarian empire and, in doing so, endured a good deal of suffering. Many British doctors, nurses, and volunteers had gone to Serbia to help, and returned deeply moved by the people and their story.
With Serbia under occupation and many of its citizens in exile, a group of British and Serbian supporters, led by Dr. Elsie Inglis, decided to organise a Kossovo Day in Britain, with the aim of raising awareness about Serbia’s struggle.
The day was marked in all sorts of ways. Schools read a special pamphlet about Serbia’s past and present. Public talks were held by people who had worked in Serbia during the war. Theatres and cinemas showed films about Serbia, and newspapers helped spread the word. One of the biggest events was a service at St Paul’s Cathedral, where the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke about how much Britain had come to admire Serbia. The Serbian national anthem was sung all over the country, from churches to schools.
The Manchester Guardian said of it, “In all the strange developments of wartime there can hardly be anything of such curious significance as Kossovo Day as it is being kept this year. That in London and Manchester and other English cities people should meet and demonstrate in memory of a battle which occurred in The Balkans 527 years ago – here surely is an extraordinary thing”.
Source:
A fuller account of Kossovo Day 1916 by Jenny Blake, on which this post is based, can be read here.
There are just a few places still available on the Salonika Campaign Society Battlefield Tour this coming September. So, if you have never explored the old haunts of the British Salonika Force or fancy making a return, here’s your chance!
Led by Alan Wakefield, the Salonika Campaign Society is offering a chance to visit key sites associated with British efforts during the Salonika Campaign, 1915-1918. The overall theme of the tour will be the role of the Royal Engineers with the British Salonika Force. Locations will include the Doiran battlefield, where the BSF suffered 35% of its total battle casualties, the Struma Valley, where XVI Corps faced the threat of endemic malaria as well as their Bulgarian adversaries and Kosturino Ridge, where 10th (Irish) Division made a stand in the Winter of 1915. Time will also be spent on the Birdcage Line, built to defend the city and port of Salonika from Bulgarian attack in 1915-1916. We will also attend commemorations to remember all those who served and died during the campaign.
Salonika Campaign Society Battlefield Tour
20 – 29 September 2026
The ‘Sappers in Salonika’ Tour
Sunday 20 September
• Tour begins late morning with meeting at Thessaloniki airport
• Ceremony of Remembrance at CWGC Kirechkoi-Hortakoi Military Cemetery
• Overnight in Doiran
Monday 21 September
• Visits to La Tortue; Petit Couronne; Hill 340 – to include RE involvement in raids and major operations against Petit Couronne
• Overnight in Doiran
Tuesday 22 September
• A Day on Kosturino Ridge
– Rocky Peak and Ormanli village
– Memesli village
– Site of Kajali village
– Crete Rivet and Crete Simonet
– 10th (Irish) Division Memorial
• Overnight in Doiran
Wednesday 23 September
• Visit the 22nd Division Memorial
• Visit to the ‘Devil’s Eye’ Observation Post on Grand Couronne
• Visit to The Hilt – key position in Bulgarian second line
• Overnight in Doiran
Thursday 24 September
• Doiran Memorial & Cemetery
• Dova Tepe Fort in Krusha Balkan Hills
• Triada – British artillery position (Struma campaign overview)
• Outpost Line – Between villages of Anagennisi (Cuculuk) / Vamvakia (Nevolyen) / Neo Tyroloi (Topolova)
• Overnight in Serres
Friday 25 September
• Komarjan Bridge – a study of RE bridging & river crossing methods
• Kilo 70 old Serres Road – RE work on Line of Communication
• CWGC Struma Cemetery & XVI Corps HQ
• Visit to Strimoniko (formerly Orliak) to discuss RE role in signals and lines of communications
• Overnight in Kilkis
Saturday 26 September
• Horseshoe Hill (7th Ox & Bucks action 17-18 August 1916)
• Pip Ridge (from the Greek side)
• Bowls Barrow [time allowing]
• Overnight in Kilkis
Sunday 27 September
• Attend Official Commemorations at the Five Nations Memorial, Polykastro
• CWGC Karasouli Cemetery
• Kilindir (now Kilindria) railway station – to discuss RE role in railway operating
• Overnight in Thessaloniki
Monday 28 September
• Birdcage line – including 99th Field Coy. bridge position
• Lembet Road Allied Military Cemetery
• Thessaloniki Port
• Overnight in Thessaloniki
Tuesday 29 September
• End of tour
If you are interested in joining the tour please contact SCS Chair, Alan Wakefield, for further details: aj.wakefield[at]talktalk.net or via our contact page.
Author: Rob Elliott
By the start of World War 1, tea was firmly entrenched as Britain’s national drink. Consumption had increased from about 1.4 pounds per person in the 1850s to about 6.5 pounds during the war and almost 9 pounds during the 1920s. At the outbreak of the war about 90 per cent of tea drunk in the UK was imported from British owned plantations in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The UK had become the world’s largest consumer of tea, with the market controlled by tea auctions at Mincing Lane, London. Imported teas would be transported in lead-lined chests marked with the tea’s origin and stored in bonded warehouses until they were inspected, and subsequently blended to satisfy the taste of consumers in the UK. While supplied in bulk to the armed forces, popular suppliers for the civilian market included Liptons, Ridgways and the Mazawattee Tea Company.
The importance of tea to British troops was recognised long before World War 1. There are numerous accounts and photographs or groups of Tommies sitting around a dixie, brewing up.
We have tales of soldiers using the cooling water from Lewis Guns to brew tea once it has boiled around the gun barrel. Tea kettles were installed in tanks to ensure crews always had a ready supply. There are several accounts which point out that it often tasted of petrol since it was brewed in petrol cans not properly cleaned before use.
The social importance of tea was also reflected in a postcard featured on the front cover of the New Mosquito in April, 2023.
And, as we reported a couple of years ago, even donkeys enjoyed the occasional cuppa!
At least soldiers were able to get a ready supply, despite tea having no nutritional value. Half an ounce of tea was included in a soldier’s daily ration. But on the home front, by 1916 the cost of tea had risen to the point where price controls were introduced. Tea was subsequently rationed in 1918. Despite this, the Government recognised the value of tea for both soldiers and civilians and according to at least one source, it was protected as a weapon of war.
The importance of tea and tea-time can be measured by the frequency with which tea is mentioned in the literature. For example, the word “tea” appears almost 400 times in the pages of The Mosquito and at least 50 times in The New Mosquito. Many books, especially memoirs, are littered with references that clearly show the important the armed forces placed on tea being available at “tea time”, or any other time they could get it. My favourite reference, though, is found in the pages of H. Collinson Owen’s excellent book, “Salonika and After, The Sideshow That Won the War”. (Hodder and Stoughton, 1919, p. 64-5). He writes:
“One day we went for a long ride to Langaza and back, and I thought, as we thudded at full gallop across the plain, of crowded and smelly Salonika, wih its eternal noise and discomfort. Here, in the pure air of Spring, with not a soul in sight, it was like being uncaged and given wings. Langaza is a big Turkish village, about two miles from the large lake of the same 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 in Langaza. And all over Macedonia at that moment, up to 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.”
Searching recently through the Internet for information on the 85th Field Ambulance (famed for its pantomimes), I stumbled across an article about Sir Harold Arthur Thomas Fairbank. Today he is remembered as one of the great pioneers of British orthopaedic surgery, but his career was not confined to hospital wards and consulting rooms. For those of us studying the Salonika campaign, it is Fairbank’s Macedonian wartime service that is of interest.
Born in Windsor in 1876, Fairbank came from a family steeped in medicine. After training at Epsom College and Charing Cross Hospital, he qualified in medicine in 1898. Adventure seemed to appeal to him early on. During the Second Boer War he volunteered as a civilian surgeon, where he crossed paths with figures such as Arthur Conan Doyle.
Back in London, he quickly made a name for himself at Great Ormond Street Hospital. By the age of thirty he had become the first surgeon at a London teaching hospital to practise purely as an orthopaedic specialist — something rather unusual at the time, when most surgeons still divided their work with general surgery.
Then came 1914. Fairbank joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was posted to the 85th Field Ambulance of the 28th Division – donating both the family car and chauffeur for ambulance work. After serving in Ypres, he was posted to Salonika in early 1916.
The Salonika setting hardly needs explaining: heat, dust, flies, endless sickness, and a constant battle against malaria that often seemed more dangerous than the enemy. Fairbank seemed to thrive in the middle of it. As well as handling surgery and casualty care, he was heavily involved in organisation and transport, and his abilities soon earned him promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and appointment as Consulting Surgeon to the Salonika Army in 1917.
In this role, he travelled widely in the Doiran and Struma areas, advising and helping younger surgeons and making a major contribution by establishing the first overseas convalescent centre for British troops. In the second world war such units became known as Rehabilitation Centres.
The world Fairbank worked in was later captured by Stanley Spencer, whose paintings of dressing stations and camp life remain some of the most vivid images of the Macedonian Front, especially those at Sandham Memorial Chapel. When looking at Spencer’s sketches and paintings, it’s not too difficult to imagine Fairbank moving through the chaos of a casualty station and helping other surgeons in their work.
Like so many in Salonika, Fairbank eventually became a casualty himself. On 20 August 1918, suffering from malaria and typhoid fever, Fairbank was admitted to the 43rd General Hospital where he stayed until his medical evacuation to Malta on 18 September. He remained in Malta until late December 1918.
Incidentally, it was while recovering in Malta that Fairbank developed a lifelong fascination with butterfly collecting — a surprisingly gentle legacy from such a harsh campaign.
His diaries from his time in Salonika are available at Cambridge University Library but not online, as far as I can tell. The library gives a synopsis of them:
“Fairbank frequently remarks on the cold temperatures endured and the treatment of those sick with malaria and diarrhoea. The diary carries reports of the autumn 1916 offensive from 10 September to 18 December when Fairbank returned to England for a period of leave; of Fairbank’s involvement in a serious railway accident involving a British troop train in France on 17 January 1918 which killed ten; the bombing of the 29th General Hospital in Salonika on 1 and 5 March 1917; and of the fire which destroyed two-thirds of Salonika from 18 to 20 August 1917. After 11 March 1917 entries become less frequent with only eight entries from 1 April to 6 December… There are no entries after 6 December 1917 until 4 August 1918. .. The diary ends with Fairbank’s arrival in England on 3 January 1919. There are only five extremely brief entries from 20 August 1918 to 3 January 1919.”
Fairbank’s wartime service earned him the Distinguished Service Order, an OBE, and three Mentions in Despatches. After the war he returned to civilian medicine, specialising in orthopaedic surgery at King’s College Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital where Uncle Tom, as he was known, was widely considered a superb clinician with an extraordinary gift for reassuring children and their families. His later achievements in orthopaedics are reported as considerable, particularly his landmark 1950 textbook An Atlas of General Affections of the Skeleton.
Sir Harold Arthur Thomas Fairbank died February 26, 1961.
Sources
Available to attend either in person or online, SCS member—and former Army officer and UK Defence Attaché—Nick Ilić will be delivering a presentation at the National Army Museum which “will bring to life the little-known but truly heroic and inspirational story of the British contribution. Their efforts, as part of a coalition of nations, played a significant role in Serbia’s survival and liberation, and in the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918. More than a century later, their sacrifice is not forgotten within Serbia.”
Nick’s presentation is on April 17 at 12:00pm and is free to attend or watch online – full details here.
On 30 March a new series of programmes began on Radio 4, and is available on BBC Sounds. Part of the long-running The Invention of… set of programmes by Misha Glenny and Miles Warde, and made on location, this new series looks at the history of the Balkans. The first episode deals with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. While this was not the cause of the Great War, it provided Austria-Hungary with the opportunity to suppress the rise of its southern neighbour and triggered the presentation of its 10-point ultimatum to Serbia.
The second episode (on Monday 6 April at 11.00) considers the Balkan Wars that preceded the events of 1914, including the Austro-Serbian Pig War. If you are not familiar with this interesting slice of culinary history, it was a customs war that took place between 1906 and 1908. It was an unsuccessful attempt to impose a customs blockade on Serbian Pork. It failed because Serbia was able to find other markets in Europe. The series promises to be an interesting listen.
The first episode can be found here.
Post by Rob Elliott
Led by Alan Wakefield, the Salonika Campaign Society is offering a chance to visit key sites associated with British efforts during the Salonika Campaign, 1915-1918.
The overall theme of the tour will be the role of the Royal Engineers with the British Salonika Force.
Locations will include the Doiran battlefield, where the BSF suffered 35% of its total battle casualties; the Struma Valley, where XVI Corps faced the threat of endemic malaria as well as their Bulgarian adversaries; and Kosturino Ridge, where 10th (Irish) Division made a stand in the Winter of 1915. Time will also be spent on the Birdcage Line, built to defend the city and port of Salonika from Bulgarian attack in 1915-1916. We will also attend commemorations to remember all those who served and died during the campaign.
If you are interested in joining the tour please contact SCS Chair, Alan Wakefield, to get your name on the emailing list for further details: aj.wakefield@talktalk.net
This information is also available as a PDF file for easier downloading and printing:
Salonika Campaign Society, 1915-1918 