It was nothing less than a question of improvising all means that were necessary for disembarking; gangways, landing stairs, roads to and from various points on the island where the expected troops were to be concentrated; of uniting and collecting together the numerous boats—large and small—eighteen tugs (among them the Marsouin, Rove, Iskeul, Marseillais 14, Audacieux, Requin), twenty-seven smaller boats, nine barges, and a dozen mahonnes and small craft of all sizes, without counting the supply ships, floating tanks, unloading cranes and so forth—which the rapid unloading and revictualing of the new arrivals demanded; of isolating the sick who were infected with typhus and cholera; in a word, of putting on their feet the diverse offices that come under the heading of direction of the port, all the machinery of which was yet to be created. At the same time it was necessary to maintain and repair the booms of the harbor, to test the channels, make arrangements concerning piloting, anchorage, and new supplies of water, provisions and coal for the always hurried transports which arrived, unloaded and sailed away at all hours of the day and night; constantly to clear out and drag the waters near the island; establish observation posts around it, station batteries in suitable positions, and finally to protect the channels around Corfu and the Albanian coast, in which the English aided us effectively by sending a hundred drifters (a sort of little fishing boat which we call "cordiers" at Boulogne), which, beating against the wind under full sail, dragged a cable a thousand meters long to snare submarines. Thanks to a pair of floating docks, which were placed between the extreme end of Corfu and the neighboring coast, a distance of but two or three kilometers, our vessels were soon in position, in a line thirty miles in length so that they could execute all the movements necessary for the landing of the Serbs and also have gun drill, launch torpedoes and sea planes, and perform the rest of the maneuvers that are indispensable.
Furthermore, fresh water in sufficient quantities had to be procured. For if the springs on the island could supply eighty thousand inhabitants, they now had to triple their output and give out a far greater supply to meet the demand of one hundred and fifty thousand more mouths. Every bit of flour had to come from outside, from Italy, France or England since Corfu has very few resources and we did not wish to encounter the hostility of a population to which it was necessary for us to show firmness more than once. The most recalcitrant were forced to give in, not without ceasing to rob us very much in the dealings they had with us. Oranges went up to ten francs a dozen, and small shopkeepers realized fortunes by doing money changing at fantastic rates.
And all that will furnish only a very incomplete idea of the innumerable obligations the aquatic anthill, from an industrial and military standpoint, which is called a naval base, has to meet.
On the ninth of January, 1916, the situation of the Serbian Army was precisely as follows: In the neighborhood of San Giovanni di Medua there were twelve hundred officers, twenty-six thousand foot soldiers, seven thousand horses and two thousand cattle; at Durazzo there were thirty-six hundred officers, sixty-nine thousand soldiers, twenty thousand horses and four thousand cattle; on the roads that led to Valona some fifty thousand men including officers, two thousand horses and three hundred cattle.
In these three principal groups were forty-one field pieces, the glorious remainder of the Serbian artillery.
Add to that twenty-two thousand Austrian prisoners whom the Serbs carried along with them in their exodus towards the coast and also the pitiable troop of refugees, sick men, old men, women, children who, desiring at any cost to escape slavery and servitude, followed the retreating army.
The evacuation of this indomitable people was made at San Giovanni di Medua. The soldiers were sent to Corfu. The civilians were sent to Algiers and Tunis, the Austrian prisoners to Sardinia. But where were the typhoid and the cholera patients to be transported? No one wanted them; and in this stampede of a people, cholera and typhus had made their appearance and spread with alarming rapidity. A certain number of cholera patients had been taken to Brindisi; and everyone, naturally, refused to take them in.
Since this was the case, a French trawler, the Verdun, commanded by Lieutenant d'Aubarède, brought the sick to Corfu. And, as M. Emile Vedel tells it, this was perhaps one of the most beautiful episodes of our navy's activity, for there are few deaths as hideous as that to which they exposed themselves in taking in their arms poor beings touched with a malady essentially so contagious, and so dirty and covered with vermin that they made everyone shudder. With precaution and care that brothers do not always have for their own brothers, these near-corpses were taken to Corfu, where doctors and nurses from the French Navy saved some of them and made the end more easy for the rest.
In twenty-two days everything was almost over. The troops at San Giovanni and Valona and Durazzo had been evacuated, as had the Austrian prisoners. All the money of the Serbian treasury had been transported to Marseilles in the cruiser Ernest Renan. It amounted to about eight hundred million francs.
However, on the twentieth of January, about two thousand men still remained at San Giovanni di Medua. There were also a certain number of field pieces. After so many men and guns had been saved, were these to be abandoned? No. Everything must be saved. The last man must be saved and the last gun must be saved, whatever may be the risk, the fatigue and the hard work.