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The British and French commands alike had subordinated the Dardanelles and Salonika expeditions to the needs of an autumn offensive on the West; and the argument between the two schools of thought is narrowed down, so far as the autumn of 1915 is concerned, to the question whether the troops we lost in September and October at Loos and in Champagne might not have been more effectively employed at the Dardanelles or Salonika.
They knew a mud house that is held together with beams and rafters can be rebuilt, but that you cannot rebuild frozen toes and fingers. In thrusting history upon Salonika, the last few years have been especially busy.
So he left the European war zone with the widely quoted remark: "The day of the war correspondent is over." And yet I was not surprised when, one evening, late in November of last year, he suddenly walked into the room in Salonika where William G. Shepherd, of the United Press, "Jimmy Hare," the veteran war photographer, and I had established ourselves several weeks before.
Constantine had no choice, and under compulsion nominated his second son Alexander as his successor. On the 13th he left Athens for Lugano, and on the 21st Venizelos arrived from Salonika and formed a government. The German agents were expelled, and the Greek people were reconciled to the violence of the proceedings by the substantial consolation of the raising of the blockade.
So he left the European war zone with the widely quoted remark: "The day of the war correspondent is over." And yet I was not surprised when, one evening, late in November of last year, he suddenly walked into the room in Salonika where William G. Shepherd, of the United Press, "Jimmy Hare," the veteran war photographer, and I had established ourselves several weeks before.
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.
When, in a Turkish restaurant, you order a dinner in the same words you last used in Vera Cruz, and the dinner arrives, it seems uncanny. But, in Salonika, the language most generally spoken is French. Among so many different races they found, if they hoped to talk business and a Greek, an Armenian, and a Jew are not averse to talking business a common tongue was necessary.
But in spite of a shuffle of ministers, the Court held on its pro-German way and did whatever it could, by secret communications with Berlin and facilities for German submarines, to hamper the Entente preparations for an offensive from Salonika. Early in August Sarrail, who was now commander-in-chief, ordered a French attack on Doiran, and Doldjeli was taken.
The rule is that the hotel clerk discovers a vacant room, a ticket speculator disgorges a front-row seat, and the ship's doctor sells you a berth in the sick bay. But in Salonika the rule failed. As already explained, Salonika always is overcrowded.
Save for neutral Greece and Rumania, the Italian foothold at Avlona and ours at Gallipoli, the whole of the Balkans had passed into the enemy's hands; for Essad's rule was as brief as it was circumscribed, and the Italians withdrew from Durazzo as the Austrians advanced to the southern frontier of Albania, and menaced Greek territory far beyond the reach of protection from Salonika.
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