Today is World Refugee Day. Refugees and displaced persons have always been a feature of war and the Salonika campaign was no exception. There were refugees from earlier conflicts in the Balkans, the ongoing hostilities and the devastating fire which destroyed much of Salonika in 1917. Continue reading “World Refugee Day: Faces of Salonika”
Tag: Salonika
Posts about the city of Salonika (also known as Salonica) during the First World War campaign of 1915-1918.
Faces of Salonika : John Staple and friends
My thanks go to Simon and Christine Briggs for sharing a fascinating set of photos belonging to Christine’s grandfather, John Staple. John served with the Army Service Corps Remount Service in Salonika for two-and-a-half years.
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Remembering Herbert Beacock, RAMC
My thanks go to David Redhead who kindly provided a splendid photo of Salonika’s iconic White Tower, following an appeal for information in our email newsletter, The New Balkan News. The photo belonged to his grandfather and I am delighted to be able to remember him here.
Faces of Salonika : photo album for sale
My thanks go to Brian Goodison-Blanks of Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood Limited, Fine Art Valuers and Auctioneers in Exeter, for telling us of a splendid photograph album which will be in their Sporting and Collectors auction on 15 and 16 November. Continue reading “Faces of Salonika : photo album for sale”
Faces of Salonika : Somerset Miners
This rather small and tatty picture – another eBay purchase – shows a group of men sitting on a quayside, which may be Salonika. The mixture of service dress (as worn in the UK and on the Western Front) with a sun helmet would certainly be appropriate for men of the BSF after about mid-1916. The extremes of the Macedonian climate make all sorts of combinations of dress possible which, for me, is one of the fascinations of the campaign. Continue reading “Faces of Salonika : Somerset Miners”
The Great Fire of 1917 : an eyewitness account
My thanks go to David Shillito for providing the transcript of a letter written by his father – Second Lieutenant John Ewart Shillito of 2nd East Yorkshire Regiment (83 Brigade, 28 Division) – to his family describing the fire of August 1917. Continue reading “The Great Fire of 1917 : an eyewitness account”
The New Mosquito #16 : September 2007
On the centenary of Salonika’s Great Fire, it seems appropriate to provide details of an issue which contained a major 90th anniversary article on the fire by Nigel Crompton, SCS member and a member of the Fire Brigade Society.
The Great Fire remembered by the SRA in 1929
In 1929 the Salonika Reunion Association remembered the great fire of August 1917 with a photograph on the front cover of its publication, The Mosquito.
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Faces of Salonika : Bill Devereux and the Great Fire
My thanks go to Richard Devereux who provided this photo of his grandfather, Bill, enjoying a cigarette in the ruins of Salonika in the aftermath of the Great Fire, having done his bit to help.
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The Great Fire : I Saw Salonika Burn, 18 August 1917
The author … here gives a magnificently graphic description of the inexorable fire which swept over the city in August 1917. Mr Collinson Owen at this time was editor of the soldier’s newspaper “The Balkan News”, and with the characteristic resource of a keen journalist only missed two days’ publication through the ravage of his office and printing works.
Continue reading “The Great Fire : I Saw Salonika Burn, 18 August 1917”