researching salonika – Salonika Campaign Society, 1915-1918

More on the Munsters

In April 2025 I described my exploration of another possible family connection (albeit by marriage) with the Salonika campaign. This concerned Lt George Clark who was the Medical Officer of 7/Royal Munster Fusiliers. His medal index card and the Battalion war diary (WO 95/4296) conclusively place him in Gallipoli but, to see what happened next, required a visit to The National Archives at Kew to look at the next part of the war diary which, of course, has not been digitised. I can now share the next stage of my investigations and, whilst I don’t expect you to be especially interested in my family history, what I found out about 7/RMF may be of wider interest.

Map cataloguing work continues…

Hats off and three cheers to the valiant SCS members who have just completed their second visit to the National Archives with more maps checked, listed, and photographed. Great work!

Part of map showing sites of proposed amphibious landings along the Aegean coast and Bulgarian units available to oppose such operations.

Typical cover for a folder of Salonika maps under WO 153 series. The maps in this folder were too large to successfully photograph and work on these will have to be done onsite.

Part of map showing British artillery battery locations on part of the Birdcage defence line

Now Online! ‘Military Operations Macedonia’

Readers will be very grateful to SCS member Keith Roberts, and Great War Forum member ‘maureenE’, for pointing out the online availability of two major texts related to the Salonika Campaign.

Military Operations Macedonia Volumes One and Two, by Captain Cyril Falls* were part of the series History of the Great War and based on official documents. Free, immediate, and online access to these texts is a wonderful benefit to anyone interested in the Salonika Campaign.

The digital versions of Volume 1 (1933) From the Outbreak of War to the Spring of 1917, and Volume 2 (1935) From the Spring of 1917 to the End of the War both contain the full text. However, both volumes are missing the maps which were originally in separate cases. Many of these maps are, however, available from the society here, albeit for a relatively small charge.

Both volumes are available on two sites: Internet Archive and Google Books. My preference is to use Google Books, I find the search tool a little easier to use, but that’s a personal choice. Either way, it’s a great that we now have these texts online for all.

Archive.org

Military Operations Macedonia. From the Outbreak of War to the Spring of 1917 [Volume 1] compiled by Captain Cyril Falls 1933 HMSO.

Military Operations Macedonia. From the Spring of 1917 to the End of the War [Volume 2] compiled by Captain Cyril Falls 1935 HMSO.

Google Books

Military Operations Macedonia. From the Outbreak of War to the Spring of 1917 [Volume 1] compiled by Captain Cyril Falls 1933 HMSO.

Military Operations Macedonia. From the Spring of 1917 to the End of the War [Volume 2] compiled by Captain Cyril Falls 1935 HMSO.

*Author Cyril Bentham Falls CBE was a British army officer turned military historian and journalist. After completing his military service, he began writing military histories. From 1923 to the outbreak of war in 1939 he researched and wrote several volumes of the British Government’s ‘Official History of the War’, including the two-volume history of the Macedonian campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Falls