The Great Fire of Salonika August 18th 1917

On this day, August 18th 1917, a Great Fire ( Μεγάλη Πυρκαγιά της Θεσσαλονίκης )   broke out in Thessaloniki, a thriving city and the second largest in Greece.  It burned for 32 hours and spread throughout the city right down to the seafront where it then set fire to the caiques and boats in the sea.  This at last brought it to an end.  This fierce fire had by then destroyed businesses, homes and displaced 70,000 people.  It was never again the same city.

Salonika, as it was then called, had only recently been liberated from Turkish rule  in 1912.  But it still swarmed with people of many nationalities.  The Greeks were still in the minority, while Jews formed the majority, running many successful businesses along the wharves and docksides, as well as clothing and jewellery shops in the great arcades in the city centre.  Apart from these were Turks, Armenians, Albanians, Roma and a swarm of other ethnicities.  Added to this 'macedoine', this pot pourri of humanity, were the Allied Forces of Italy, France and Britain who were defending the borders of Macedonia from the Bulgarians and subsequently the Germans. 

Though it was such a rich and important city it was totally chaotic in structure, dilapidated and unhygienic amongst the poor.   Some said the fire was due to a careless housewife upsetting boiling fat, but a subsequent investigation indicated that the fire had begun in the Mevlane or Turkish district in a house occupied by some refugees.  A spark from a kitchen fire is said to have ignited a pile of straw.  No one will ever really know.  Such fires often broke out both in Turkey and in Macedonia as the houses were mainly built of wood in these districts.  In this instance it was ignored partly from foolishness and partly as there was no fire fighting equipment or water available.  The famously fierce Vardar winds of Salonika were high that day and fanned the blaze sending the flames raging through the city.  The water supplies had been commandeered by the Allied Forces to serve their camps and hospitals, high up in the hills and city suburbs and they were not enthusiastic about letting them be used for what they imagined was a small conflagration.  Thus the fire swept through the rich business districts and Jewish tradesmen were forced to flee, losing all their goods and homes.  Chaos ensued as people fled, trying to save some of their goods, paying anything to the hamals (or porters) who profited nicely from the panic. Surprisingly, due to the movement of the wind, most of the Turkish area, higher up by the city walls remained largely untouched and can be seen to this day.  

The French half-heartedly blew up some houses to try and halt the run of the fire but didn't continue with the operation and eventually withdrew.  In the end it was the British forces who helped the unfortunate people as they streamed out of the city, taking them in their military lorries to their depots for tea and biscuits and on to refugee camps, hastily erected outside the city.   Some soldiers in the French forces were accused of looting abandoned shops and even asking for tips to take people away.  Such is the greed of humanity that will profit from the misery of others. 

There is an interesting eye witness account online by Dr Isobel Emslie Hutton worth reading.  I myself read many letters from nurses, soldiers and doctors recounting their own eye witness accounts when writing my book The Long Shadow.  It was one of the most devastating fires of the First World War but it did pave the way for the city to be reconstructed in a better manner.  The beautiful Aristotelous Square was constructed during this time but sadly the entire Hebrard plan was not totally implemented due to lack of funds.  A typical Greek problem!

A good friend, Richard Devereux's grandfather, William, was serving with the Salonika Campaign and no doubt was amongst the soldiers helping the refugees.  Richard has written a splendid little book of poems about this period in his Grandad's life called simply 'Bill'

The soldiers gazed in awe at the glow and smoke . . .

were sent on trucks to give what help they could.

'All hands to the pumps!'  But the fire brigade had none

that worked.  Bill did what he could.  He helped a bloke

load onto a cart his few pathetic goods.

In the photograph, Bill having a fag.  Job done!

from YooniqImages:   Inspecting damage after the fire

For another take on the fire, read my book The Long Shadow, set in Salonika during this period, taken from first hand accounts.  In this extract Dorothy and Captain Dunning have taken a shopping visit to town when they are caught up in the melee of terrified people fleeing from burning homes.

'Those smelly creatures in my car!' said Dunning in horror but his natural sense of justice prevailed and he agreed to drive down the Via Egnatia and see if anyone needed picking up.  When we got near there we began to see the first stream of refugees pouring along the street, clutching their foolish belongings as if they were gold dust.  One woman held a mirror and a brass bowl against her chest and appeared oblivious to the wailing infant yelling and clinging in terror to her skirts.  An old woman was wandering about , calling for her family, looking lost and bewildered.  Others pushed and jostled along, dropping their useless and heavy goods at last in order to lift their children who screamed to be picked up and carried.  To my disgust I saw men load up their womenfolk with precious sewing machines and other items , then leaving them to struggle along in the crowd, took themselves off speedily to save their own lives. 

The noise was unbelievable.  Men were shouting to each other, women and children screaming and behind all this one could hear the crackling roar of flames, the crash of timber and glass shattering and the smell of acrid smoke which billowed up into the air and driven by a fierce wind down the streets which formed tunnels for it.  It was like some strange dragon breathing out through its nostrils.

                                                                                   

 The Long Shadow is available in Greek from Okeanida as O Iskios tou Polemou and English:

Thessaloniki: An Experience at the American College (Anatolia)

Life never ceases to have surprises.  Thanks goodness.  Mind you, no one wants unpleasant surprises and I've had a few of those as well of late.  But the invitation from the lovely American College in Thessaloniki earlier this year was a wonderful honour and I went there the last week in May to join a most interesting workshop organised by Maria Kyriakidou, the Assistant Principal.  It was called Art, Aesthetics and Power and there were nine speakers including myself.  Topics included several discussions on famous photographers such as Fred Boissonas, a Swiss pioneer of photography, Leni Riefenstahl and her film Olympia which she produced for Hitler's 1936 Nazi version of the Olympic Games, and Edward S. Curtis who photographed Native American  people.

Sioux maiden by Edward S Curtis

By this time the indigenous Americans were safely corralled in reservations and these pictures were staged to make it seem the Indians were still in their former free state.  All the same they are works of art and capture a time long lost. 

Greek village house by Fred Boissonas

Leni Reifenstahl

Other topics covered aspects of gender such as the importance of Mary Magdalene whom the Church denigrated as the repentant harlot and the story of Esmeray, a Kurdish transvestite from Kars.  The last talk was based on interviews and research made in Cyprus on gay, and transgender Cypriot people and 'normal' attitudes towards them.   Some other beautiful photographs of Thessaloniki and its architectural changes in the late 19th - early 20th century due to war, earthquake, fire also formed a most interesting discussion.

Old Thessaloniki

My own talk was on my first  book The Long Shadow which was mainly set in Salonika in World War One. Ypres, the Somme, Passchendale and all the other haunting names of the Western Front are well known events, lived over again and again in films and documentaries.  We conjure up pictures of slithering mud, cold trenches and other harrowing scenes of Western battle zones.  But who knows much about Macedonia and the freezing Vardar winds, the barren but beautiful mountains, the treacherous ravines and raging summer heat filled with malarial mosquitoes?  The troops entrenched in Salonika behind barbed wire barricades called it The Birdcage, hence the title of the talk The Barbed Wire Birdcage.  The Long Shadow is a novel that explores the events of the Salonika Campaign through the imaginary diary of a Red Cross nurse with true as well as fictitious events based on letters, diaries, magazines and books of that period.  We see Salonika as a fascinating, multicultural city described through the eyes of doctors, nurses and ordinary Tommies, many of whom laid down their lives there. 

Talking about the Struma Front

It has been a most enjoyable experience.  Thank you all at ACT for inviting me there.