A week ago, I learnt the very sad news that friend and long-time member of the SCS, Adrian Wright, had died in Thessaloniki. Adrian will be known to many members of the Society, in particularly those who have joined one or more of our annual battlefield tours. For many years, Adrian acted as SCS standard bearer during official Remembrance ceremonies at Lembet Road Military Cemetery and the Five Nations Memorial, Polykastro. He would also often join tour parties during travels in northern Greece.
Along with Apostolos Nalmpantis and Minas Drestiliaris, Adrian has assisted the Society with location recces of new sites for the annual battlefield tours and with research into photographs and documents. Adrian’s linguistic skills opened very useful avenues of research into French, German and Greek sources relating to the Salonika Campaign. A particular memory that comes to mind is that of a day on part of the Birdcage Line with Adrian and Minas. From the sites of the vanished villages of Pirnar and Daudli, past the traces of trenches, dugouts and concrete shelters to the summit of the Matterhorn we walked. My friends sharing with me their discoveries in the landscape.
Adrian was always willing to share his wide knowledge of the campaign and wider Greek history with all those who shared his passion for the subject. I and many others have shared interesting conversations with Adrian both out in the field and over a meal or drinks. Sadly, such meetings became less frequent in recent years as Adrian’s declining health precluded him from many of our activities. Yet, whenever possible, he managed to join us in Thessaloniki to talk history. Now, it is with a sense of shock and true sadness to think that such moments and meetings will not come again.
At Adrian’s funeral the SCS was represented by Apostolos Nalmpantis and Minas Drestiliaris. I would like to thank Apostolos for organising an SCS badged poppy wreath. That Adrian’s family allowed the wreath to be buried with him was a very fitting tribute to a man who has done so much to help further knowledge of and commemorate all those who served in Macedonia between 1915 and 1918.
Adrian, Rest in Peace, you were a truly good man and I am proud to call you my friend.
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.
On the evening of August 5th, in Salisbury, Heather Walkling (Operations Assistant, Sandham Memorial Chapel) will present a 45-minute illustrated talk exploring Sir Stanley Spencer’s life and work. The talk, offers the opportunity to “discover the extraordinary story behind one of Britain’s most unique war memorials.” For full details, including ticket purchase, follow this link.
Beginning in August, and continuing until November, visitors to the chapel can participate in a 15-minute talk by a Chapel Steward exploring a single Stanley painting, offering insight into its style, inspiration, and context. Afterwards, First World War poetry will be read aloud in the Chapel, “bringing further reflection and atmosphere to the setting.” For full details, follow this link.
In May 1915, teacher Monica Stanley, a 36-year-old spinster from London, left her job for 6 months to help set up a field hospital in Kragujevac under the auspices of the Women’s Imperial Service League founded by Mabel Annie St Clair Stobart. As a domestic science teacher, she was particularly suited to her role as head cook, being responsible also for provisioning. She is mentioned briefly in Mabel Stobart’s book, “The Flaming Sword in Serbia and Elsewhere”, published by Hodder and Stoughton, 1916.
Monica might have been remembered as no more than a footnote in history, but fortunately she kept a diary which was published in 1916 as “My diary in Serbia: April 1 1915-Nov 1, 1915; Attached to the Stobart Field Hospital in Serbia”. Widely available, the diary is included on the SCS DVD. In a plain and unvarnished way, it provides an insight into the setting up of the hospital and several local dispensaries. It also describes her role in purchasing supplies for the kitchen and the availability of foodstuffs from markets and elsewhere. She describes how the hospital staff struggled to cope with typhus, her own difficulties caused by typhus and gastritis, and a period of convalescence at the Berry Unit where she learned about Serbian cookery.
The book also contains many observations on the war and its effects on Kraguyevac and other areas; here is just one example. While at the British Fever Hospital in Belgrade on Saturday July 24th, she writes, “The air raid we had the other day: a French aviator went up and there was a battle in the air; Monsieur Paulhan fired on the Austrian aeroplane and brought it down in Austrian territory…” (My Diary in Serbia, p76)
But who was Monsieur Paulhan? How and why would Monica Stanley know the name of a French pilot?
Isidore Auguste Marie Louis Paulhan (19 July 1883 – 10 February 1963) was already world famous as a pilot and aeronautical engineer before being posted to the Serbian Front with Escadrille MF 99S. He had held many records for speed, altitude and distance, and most notably won a £10,000 prize put up by the Daily Mail for the first person to fly between their offices in London and Manchester within 24 hours. He had taught himself to fly in 1909 and held pilot licence number 10, and is credited with making the first powered flight in the UK at Brooklands. He also toured the United States giving flying demonstrations, and was a capable designer. One of his designs, a two-seater pusher biplane, was bought by the War Office for evaluation in 1911.
Escadrille MF 99S (MF designates the aircraft flown – a Maurice Farman 11, S designates Serbia) became operational on 23 April 1915. Monica may have observed Paulhan’s interception of an Austrian aircraft that was bombing Belgrade. The log of the Escadrille records that on July 23, 1915, the aircraft MF 11 No. 193, piloted by Captain Paulhan with Corporal Andre Lestradet as observer, shot down an Austrian aircraft that crashed in the marshes north of Belgrade, on the other side of the Danube. It was destroyed on the ground by a bomb dropped from the Farman. For more information, see: http://albindenis.free.fr/Site_escadrille/escadrille525.htm .
Monica Stanley’s diary concludes with a detailed account of her return journey, with her arriving home on 1 November 1916. Not a great deal seems to be known about Monica in later life – she married in 1927, and died on this day, 25 July, in 1972. With her diary though, she left behind a remarkable account of a volunteer providing help and support to the people of Serbia in their hour of need.
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:
Order them in advance.
Make the trip to Kew.
Photograph the pages yourself.
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.
iPhone photo of a page from the War Diary April 1918 17 Field Co, RE The (unedited) text that Gemini AI transcribed and formatted in Google Docs – in seconds
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.
Proposed itinerary
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.
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.
British officers and men enjoy a cup of tea in their trench, 1918 Photograph by Bayley Harrison, World War One, Western Front (1914-1918), 1918. National Army Museum, Study collection https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=2004-09-3-16
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!
Image: IWM (Q 31579)
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.
If you read a timeline of the First World War you could be forgiven for thinking that the only event of note in any theatre that day was the bringing down near Salonika of Zeppelin LZ 85. Several items on this have been published in The New Mosquito, the most recent being Andy Hutt’s account of the death of Doctor Norman Yellowlees (see Issue No 53, p 18-22). However, another event of major importance also took place on that day.
A day earlier, on 4 May, a message had been received at Salonika HQ from Egypt quoting a War Office telegram to Sir Archibald James Murray, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. This telegram explained that General Bryan Mahon, then in command of British Forces in Salonika, was to be moved to command the Western Front in Egypt including the defence of the Nile Valley and the Mediterranean coast west of Alexandria. His place in Salonika was to be taken by Lieutenant-General George Milne, then in command of XVI Corps (a post he had only held since January).
While he did not take up his new post until 10 May (Mahon departed on the 9th), the “momentous day” (as Milne described it) was 5 May – it was on this day that George Milne was promoted Major-General in preparation for his new appointment. He was not happy, since he recognised that the commander of XII Corps, General H M Wilson, was senior to him. As quoted by Graham Nicol in his book “Uncle George, Field Marshall Lord Milne of Salonika”, on page 88, Milne wrote in his diary:
A bitter blow as I hate the whole thing and am only too anxious to be out of it. Wilson is the senior. I spend an unhappy evening…Can’t say I feel any too happy. The difficulties ahead are great and there are too many rocks to be rounded.
Whatever General Wilson thought of the event, to his great credit their relationship was a good one, supplemented by the appointment of Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Briggs to the command of XVI Corps in Milne’s place.
The rest, as they say, is history.
With apologies to author Rob Elliott for posting this later than he had planned Andy Hutt
warm, sunny, with a faint breeze. German guns shelled French and Canadian trenches throughout the morning but fell silent in the afternoon. The brief period of peace suddenly ended at 4:00pm when the Germans unleashed a violent bombardment, first on the salient and then gradually extending to nearby roads and Ypres, turning the town into a flaming inferno and causing its citizens to flee.
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.
Salonika Campaign Society, 1915-1918 