Sitting on the terrace of the 4-star Hotel Romantique, cold beer in hand, looking over the picturesque Lake Doiran, my thoughts travelled back to earlier visits when the very thought of such a comfortable base as the Romantique seemed fanciful. My first trip to Doiran in April 1998 was a recce for the book that in 2004 was published as ‘Under the Devil’s Eye’. Accompanied by my co-author, Simon Moody, and RAF Museum friend and colleague Andrew Whitmarsh, we headed pretty much into the unknown. Leaving our hire car in Doirani, on the Greek side of the border, we walked the fenced in border road with its echoes of the Cold War. Entering Doiran for the first time the town appeared closed. No bread in the one shop and nowhere else obvious to buy even bottles of water. Today a supermarket and numerous smaller shops can provide the traveller with any extras that may be required to top up the already substantial packed lunches provided on each day in the field during battlefield tours. Pushing on we moved through the town and then headed up into the hills, passing the concrete and brick skeleton of an unfinished hotel, which to this day sits forlornly overlooking Lake Doiran as new houses begin to encroach on its once lonely position.
Trying to follow a 1917 British trench map we attempted to reach the summit of Grand Couronné to find the ‘Devil’s Eye’. After seven hours following paths through miles of lush green scrub we reached ‘The Ferdinand’ – memorial to the Bulgarian 34th Infantry Regiment. Overgrown and in a poor state of repair, this memorial was restored in 2010 following similar work on the 22nd Division memorial, which sits barely a few yards away. However, back in 1998 the whole area was so covered in thick scrub and trees that the British memorial would remain hidden from my gaze until 2007 when we were led to it by Gele, one of our guides. Over the years I’ve visited many First World War sites in Greece and FYROM a good number of which I would never have found without the knowledge of local farmers, shepherd, villagers and friends such as Adrian, Apostolos, Binko, Gele and Romeo. Always willing to follow up leads from maps and other documentary sources or to share discoveries of their own, new sites await during most visits. It is no exaggeration to say their contribution to both my research and the success of the SCS battlefield tours cannot be understated.
Climbing from the 22nd Division memorial to the ‘Devil’s Eye’ today, visitors are assisted by stone steps and a cleared path, a legacy of the increased number of people visiting the Doiran battlefield. In the early days this final leg of the journey comprised a combined scramble up a dirt slope, a spot of rock climbing and then a fight through near impenetrable scrub. Passing the remains of Bulgarian rock and concrete dugouts clinging to the slope and emerging from the undergrowth like the remains of a lost civilization we climbed towards the summit. Reaching a rock cut communication trench, a place I would return to ten years later, we decided to set up our bivouac camp. Cooking on solid fuel Hexi stoves we prepared freeze-dried food and drank the single beer each of us had carried. Although an experience I’d be happy to repeat on occasion, an integral part of any Salonika battlefield visit is the excellent food, good local wine, refreshing cold beer and reviving powers of rakia. Over such fare in local restaurants, conversation flows easily as members of tour groups relax in convivial surroundings.
Amongst the battlefield tour groups are a number of people who have become regular visitors. They come for the history, scenery, food and to renew friendships made in Macedonia. Whatever the motivation it is the memory of those who fought in the Salonika Campaign that is utmost in mind. Personally I am following in the footsteps of my great-uncle, Bert Dolman who served for two and a half years in Salonika with the 7th Wiltshires before his battalion was sent to France in summer 1918. Meeting uncle Bert kindled my interest in the Salonika Campaign, part of the First World War about which, at the time, I knew nothing. Having studied the letters, diaries, oral history interviews and photographs of the men and women who served with the British Salonika Force (BSF) it was inevitable a visit to the old battlefields would follow. Seeing Lake Doiran, Pip Ridge, Grand Couronné and Petit Couronné for the first time was a moving experience. Standing beside the memorial to the missing on Colonial Hill the landscape, so familiar from written accounts and black and white photographs, came to life in colour.
On each return visit to the Doiran Memorial, whilst looking towards Grand Couronné, I allow myself a couple of minutes to dwell on memories of that first visit. Now, leading tour groups including descendants of men and women who served with the BSF, I feel privileged to introduce them to places which until that time had been little more than a name in a letter or diary but to which they have a family connection. Following in the footsteps of the BSF to the ‘Birdcage Line’, Kosturino, the Struma Valley or Doiran, sharing accounts and anecdotes puts the Salonika veterans back in the landscape. To my mind, this is the best way to remember the thousands of men and women of the BSF whose contribution to victory in 1918 deserves to be remembered.
Alan Wakefield
