CHAPTER IX
SALONICA AND THE WAY THITHER
Salonica was undoubtedly the most curious of all the “war capitals,” and no other was such a centre of contending claims and political intrigues. Its population is unlike that of any other city, and although most of the inhabitants took no active part in the war, all were deeply interested in its eventual results. The majority are Jews of Spanish origin, who had settled there after their expulsion from Spain in the fifteenth century, and they still speak a bastard Spanish dialect. The next element in importance are the Greeks, who have largely increased by immigration since the annexation of Southern Macedonia to Greece. There is also a considerable number of Turks and other Moslems, and smaller communities of Bulgars, Serbs, Albanians, Kutzo-Vlachs, Europeans of various nationalities, and even a few Americans.
The city is in a certain sense an island, for it is surrounded on three sides by an almost uninhabited country, and on the fourth by the sea. It cannot be said to belong naturally to any State or race in particular, and no population looks to it as a centre of intellectual development and culture. But it is extremely important for the trade of many lands, and has consequently been fiercely contested by many peoples throughout the ages. It is this fatal attraction that has made its history such a tragedy. P. Risal, the author of the only modern work on Salonica, has rightly called it “La ville convoitée.” It is indeed better situated than any other in the Ægean; along the European shores of that sea it is half-way between the two extremities, at the head of the most sheltered gulf, at the outlet of the Vardar valley and consequently of the easiest road of access to the fertile lands of the interior. As Professor Hogarth has stated,[32] the other ports which might compete with it are either blocked by mountain barriers or surrounded by unstable populations. Were it not for malaria, the backward civilization and the lack of safety of its immediate hinterland, Salonica might have become an important agricultural and perhaps even industrial centre, but the farming methods of the neighbouring territories are extremely primitive and industry is non-existent. Its radius of commercial action is considerable. It is easier to send goods from any part of Macedonia and even from parts of Albania and Epirus to Salonica than to the ports of Albania; even the upper reaches of the valleys of some of the tributaries of the Danube are reached more easily from Salonica than from the Black Sea ports. Salonica is the junction of the railways from Constantinople, Uskub and Belgrade, and Monastir and Athens.
THE GREEK NATIONAL FESTIVAL ON APRIL 7, 1917.
M. Venizelos leaving the Church of S. Sophia, Salonica.
KING ALEXANDER OF GREECE VISITS A FRENCH CAMP.
To face p. 158.
Under the Turks, Salonica was the outlet for the trade of half the Balkan Peninsula, as it ought to be to-day. But the wars of 1912–13 drove the Turks from Macedonia and partitioned the hinterland among several States, so that Greek Salonica is but a short distance from the frontiers of Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania, and the customs barriers have placed artificial obstacles in the way of traffic. The Greek, the Serb, and the Bulgarian each aspired to the possession of Salonica, hoping, in their narrow Balkan mentality, to capture its trade and enjoy its advantages entirely for himself to the exclusion of his neighbours. None of them understood that the prosperity of Salonica was bound up with that of the interior as a whole and of all the peoples of the Peninsula, and that commercial restrictions to the advantage of one nation alone were bound to prove detrimental to all, the non beati possidentes included. The port cannot prosper unless trade comes to it unhampered from Monastir and Uskub, from Nish and Belgrade, from Kustendil, Sofia and Ochrida, and not merely from Verria, Florina and Serres. As a Greek port it will always be a poor thing, and the Piræus will never allow an appreciable portion, even of Greek trade, to be diverted to Salonica, so that in present circumstances it is destined to fall into decay. The same would happen if it were to become exclusively a Serb or Bulgarian port. By its nature it is essentially an international port, and it should be subjected to a special régime, such as will probably be applied to many other ports in the near future. It would in this way not only prosper, but also become a bond of union to conciliate, through commercial interest, States and peoples who now hate each other. Apart from political and administrative difficulties, a great deal of capital will have to be invested in the port to carry out important works to prevent it from being silted up by the Vardar, but the capital will not be available unless investors are first assured that trade will be attracted to the port and not driven away from it by political quarrels.