Riding towards the camp, we met soldiers everywhere, some of them leisurely sitting by the roadside cooking their meals. As we rode past them an aide-de-camp of the Sultan turned to me and, pointing to the Albanian Redifs, said: “These fellows know no greater delight than that of being called upon to fight, and, if needs be, to die for the Sultan.”
One afternoon I rode out, accompanied by Mehmet Tscherkess, a young Turkish major who had served in the Prussian Guards, and who was, besides, an aide-de-camp of the Sultan and my interpreter to the Meluna Pass, which formed the frontier towards Greece at that particular point. When the war broke out three weeks later some fierce fighting took place here. A small block-house on a summit marked the Turkish boundary-line, and a couple of hundred yards away a similar structure denoted the Greek border, where we could discern a group of Greek soldiers. The Sultan’s aide-de-camp suggested that I should walk over and have a talk with the Greeks; which I did, accompanied by my dragoman. We were met half way by a Greek cavalry officer. He told us that he had been trained at the French cavalry school of Saumur, and in manner and conversation he certainly reminded us more of a Frenchman than a Greek. To a casual remark of mine he replied light-heartedly—even truculently—that war was inevitable, as also was the defeat of the Turks! Looking down into the valley, the far-famed vale of Tempè lay before us, through which Pompey rode a fugitive, flying from the fateful field of Pharsalia. We could just perceive Larissa in the distance. The little white tents of the Greek forces lay spread out at our feet and were plainly visible amid a landscape more advanced in the verdure of spring and bearing far more signs of cultivation and closer habitation than that we had passed through in Macedonia. We parted on good terms. I rejoined the Turkish officers, and rode leisurely back to Elassona.
On leaving Elassona the Turkish Commander-in-Chief had prepared a little surprise for us. We started on horseback at about five o’clock in the morning, as it was reckoned that it would take all day to do the forty miles to Katerina, on the coast. After riding for about an hour, and turning a sharp angle of the road, we beheld a squadron of Turkish cavalry drawn up at the salute to bid the representatives of the New York Herald a parting good-bye. Even to-day I cannot think of this little incident without the reflection how grateful the Turks were for the smallest proof of fairness towards them, and how rarely they got it. We rode on leisurely all day, and so scorching was the sun, although we were only in March, that when I rose next morning in the little Greek inn at Katerina I found the skin had peeled off my ears on to the pillow. From Katerina a Turkish Government torpedo-boat brought us back to Salonica.
War had not yet broken out, but every indication of its inevitability was about us. The hotels were crowded with war correspondents, who had arrived from all parts and were feverishly active, getting ready to proceed to join the Turkish forces, buying horses, prancing about, testing their purchases in the street in front of the hotel, engaging servants, and laying in a stock of provisions. The English public-house I have mentioned did a brisk trade. Among the necessities of the situation was that of obtaining permission from the authorities to be allowed to proceed to Headquarters. Nor was this an easy matter for the representatives of those papers which for years past had relentlessly vilified the Hamidian régime.
One day Mr. J. P. Blunt, the British Consul-General at Salonica, a strong philo-Turk, said to me at the Club: “I want to introduce you to the correspondent of the Times.” “I am sorry,” I replied jokingly, “but I have made it a rule never to allow myself to be introduced to any countryman of mine on the Continent.” Experience had taught me, as it must have taught others, that—speaking of the type of Englishmen one is likely to come across on the Continent—if they are in what, according to their lights, is a superior position to your own, they do not desire to make your acquaintance. If, on the other hand, they want something from you, or their status is inferior to yours, it is for them to be introduced to you. Mr. Blunt smiled good-humouredly and added that the Times correspondent, who had just arrived from London, had heard of my good relations with the Turkish authorities, and would be very glad if I could afford him some assistance, as he intended to proceed to Elassona the very next morning.
This being the case, I declared my readiness to assist him to the best of my ability. Mr. Blunt thereupon brought Mr. Bigham to my hotel. He was a son of the present Lord Mersey, and impressed me as possessing an equipment which would carry him far under modern conditions of getting on in the world—a view which, I am glad to say, has since been borne out. He wielded a ready journalistic pen, spoke and read Turkish, drank tea and mineral waters, and was evidently as hard as nails. He also wrote a book on his experiences as a war correspondent in the campaign, and very kindly sent me a copy of it after the war was over. I gave him a letter of introduction to Edhem Pasha, allowed my Roumanian interpreter to accompany him, and finally prevailed upon the Governor-General of Salonica to permit the Circassian officer, Mehmet, who had been my companion, to serve as his escort on his journey. The result was that Mr. Bigham arrived at the Turkish Headquarters well in advance of all the other correspondents at that time in Salonica, including that redoubtable but genial philo-Turk, the late Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett.
The Græco-Turkish war afforded what will probably be the last opportunity, at least in Europe, for a fair heyday outing to those belonging to what G. B. Shaw might well have described as, next to that of royalty, “a decaying industry”—the profession of war correspondent.
Among other arrivals at Salonica were several German officers in the Turkish service, notably the late Grumbkow Pasha, on their way from Constantinople to the front. They appeared more eager for the fray than the Turks themselves, like Sir Walter Scott’s
Great Chatham with his sabre drawn
Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan;