The Salonica theatre of operations and its part in the outcome of the First World War

Abstract

Salonica and World War I are a pairing that inevitably brings specific images to mind: the existence, for instance, of a curious medley of races and cultures, to which the circumstantial presence of foreign troops (many of them coming from the distant colonies) added a rather exotic note; the great fire of 1917 and the planning and rebuilding of the city; the upsurge of political passions and confrontations that led to the eruption of the Venizelist National Defence movement and the formation of a provisional government; images, finally, like the existence in the same space of an international expeditionary force that enjoyed the luxury, in time of war, of gardening -to repeat the expression of France’s government- and whose overriding concern was not to add to the already long list of losses due to malaria. But is this how it really was?