To aid the Allies, Russia at Tannenberg made a sacrifice, and lost 200,000 men. The present French Government now feels bound in honor to help Russia by keeping the French-British armies at Salonika. As a visiting member of the government said to me:
“In this war there is no western line or eastern line. The line of the Allies is wherever a German attacks. France went to the Balkans to help Serbia. She went too late, which is not the fault of the present government. But there remains the task to keep the Germans from Egypt, to menace the railroad at Adrianople, and to prevent Roumania from an attack upon the flank of Russia. The Allies are in Salonika until this war is ended.”
In Salonika you see every evidence that this is the purpose of the Allies; that both England and France are determined to hold fast.
Reinforcements of British troops are arriving daily, and the French are importing large numbers of ready-to-set-up wooden barracks, each capable of holding 250 men. Also along the water-front they are building storehouses of brick and stone. That does not suggest an immediate departure. At the French camp, which covers five square miles in the suburbs of Salonika when I visited it to-day, thousands of soldiers were actively engaged in laying stone roads, repairing bridges and erecting new ones. There is no question but that they intend to make this the base until the advance in the spring.
A battalion of Serbians 700 strong has arrived at the French camp. In size and physique they are splendid specimens of fighting men. They are now road building. Each day refugees of the Serbian army add to their number.
At four o’clock in the morning of the 14th of December, the Greek army evacuated Salonika and that strip of Greek territory stretching from it to Doiran.
From before sunrise an unbroken column of Greek regiments passed beneath the windows of our hotel. There were artillery, cavalry, pontoons, ambulances, and thousands of ponies and donkeys, carrying fodder, supplies, and tents. The sidewalks were invaded by long lines of infantry. The water-front along which the column passed was blocked with spectators.
As soon as the Greeks had departed sailors from the Allied war-ships were given shore leave, and the city took on the air of a holiday. Thus was a most embarrassing situation brought to an end and the world informed that the Allies had but just begun to fight. It was the clearing of the prize-ring.
The clearing also of the enemy’s consulates ended another embarrassing situation. As suggested in a previous chapter, the consulates of the Central Powers were the hot-beds and clearing-houses for spies. The raid upon them by the French proved that this was true. The enforced departure of the German, Austrian, Bulgarian, and Turkish consuls added to the responsibilities of our own who has now to guard their interests. They will be efficiently served. John E. Kehl has been long in our consular service, and is most admirably fitted to meet the present crisis. He has been our representative at Salonika for four years, in which time his experience as consul during the Italian-Turkish War, the two Balkan wars, and the present war, have trained him to meet any situation that is likely to arrive.