The Macedonian Front, 1915-1918: Politics, Society and Culture in Time of War(British School at Athens - Modern Greek and Byzantine Studies)

The ‘Macedonian question’ has been much studied in recent years as has the political history of the period from the Balkan Wars in 1912-13 to the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. But for a variety of reasons, connected with the political division of Greece and the involvement of outside powers, the events at and behind the Macedonian front have been side-lined. The recent commemorations of the centenary of the end of the First World War in the UK illustrate how by comparison with the enormous and moving emphasis on the western front, Macedonia has been not wholly but largely ignored. This volume illuminates this comparatively neglected period of Greek history and examines the strategic and military aspects of the war in Macedonia and the political, social, economic and cultural context of the war.

Table of Contents:
The Salonika Campaign: an overview / Unintended Colonialism? The Armée Française d’Orient and Macedonia / The financial mobilisation of Greece, 1914-18 / Resisting National Defence: Greek mutinies and desertions in 1916-18 / The Second Great War, 1917-23 / Cameras with the British Salonika Force, 1915-18 / Theodore Stephanides at the Macedonian Front, 1917-18 / ‘Baby killers’ in the Balkans: airship raids on Salonika and their impact / Malaria and the Salonika Campaign / ‘New Cotton and the dust of ages’: Nursing in and around Salonika from 1915 to 1918 / Mediterranean Jews and the politics of contraband trade in World War I / Housing, infrastructure, social issues in Salonika during World War I: the presence and role of the Army of the Orient / Greek Eastern Macedonia, 1916-18: the experience of the Bulgarian occupation / Behind the Front Lines: Serbian soldiers on everyday life in Salonika / The image of the enemy: Greek propaganda during the Salonika campaign, 1917-18 / ‘The history of the Balkan policy of the Allies is a series of intangible mistakes’: Ernst von Falkenhausen and his perceptions of the Balkan Front / The Macedonian Front, the Great Idea and the ‘weaponisation’ of antiquities / Beyond the Anathema: the Church of Greece as policy agent during World War I / The Great War and the coming together of Zionists in Greece, 1914-19 The breakthrough on the Salonika front and the German armistice, 1918 / ‘The Real Gardeners of Salonika’: The Imperial War Graves Commission on the Macedonian Front / War pensions in Greece: healing the social wounds of a decade of war / The Greek soldier-writers of World War I and testimony as a subversive discourse / Painting visions of war and peace: Stanley Spencer, Henry Lamb and the Salonika campaign

About the Author :
Basil Gounaris is Professor of Modern History in the Department of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and author of many books and articles particularly on the history of Macedonia and history of the Balkans. Michael Llewellyn-Smith is a former British ambassador in Athens and a historian of Greece, author of Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922 and of the recent study Venizelos: The Making of a Greek Statesman 1864 - 1914 (Hurst & Co 2021). Yiannis Stefanidis is Professor in the department of international studies, Faculty of Law, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and author of many books, including Stirring the Greek Nation: Political Culture, Irredentism and Anti-Americanism in Post-War Greece, 1945-1967.