The Gardeners of Salonika: The Macedonian Campaign 1915-1918

by Alan Warwick Palmer

'The Gardeners of Salonika' as Clemenceau contemptuously labelled them, could well be called the forgotten army of the First World War. Yet the Macedonian Campaign was, in Lord Hankey's words, 'the most controversial of all the so-called sideshows.' In his definitive The First World War (1999) Sir John Keegan hailed Alan Palmer for having written 'the best study of the Macedonian Front in English.'
Palmer tells the story of this extraordinary polyglot army (it included, at various times, contingents from seven countries) from the first landing at Salonika in 1915 to the peace in 1918. He also illuminates the political and strategic background: the ceaseless argument in London and Paris over the army's future and the maze of Greek politics within which it and its commanders were enclosed.
'A masterly and colourful account of this, the most controversial and neglected sideshow of them all.' Guardian
'Not only a valuable contribution to history, but also an enthralling book' Sunday Times

Genres: History, World War I, Nonfiction, Military History

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Author also writes under Alan Palmer

Alan Palmer was Head of the History Department at Highgate School from 1953 to 1969, when he gave up his post to concentrate on historical writing and research.

Reviews

['Aussie Rick' · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Gardeners of Salonika: The Macedonian Campaign, 1915-1918 by Alan Palmer was first published in 1965 and I think was the first English publication covering the Allied campaign against the Central Powers in the Balkan region during the Great War.

The Salonika campaign is one of the lesser-known campaigns of the Great War and in this book Alan Palmer tries to correct the many half-truths and myths about the fighting in this region.

Allied armies from Britain, France, Russia, Greece and Serbia fought against troops from Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria in a wilderness of mountains, gullies and hilltops in some of the worst weather and health (malaria) conditions known to the allied forces.

The book is well-written, easy to read and offers some interesting character studies of the commanders involved in this campaign. It is a good general account offering a decent overview of the campaign from its beginnings till the armistice signed in 1918.

The one thing this book lacks is decent maps of the operational area of the armies involved. Towards the end of the book two maps are provided to allow the reader to follow the movements of the armies during the final offensive but they are not detailed enough.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Workmanlike account of the Salonika Campaign, a useless but costly sideshow of the First World War. At the campaign's height, 300,000 Allied troops were tied down in Greece, mostly dying of malaria or feuding with their Greek hosts rather than fighting Bulgarian/Austrian troops. Indeed, the diplomatic finagling proves the story's most interesting angle: the Allies parked this huge army within Greece while that country was still neutral, leading to no end of political turmoil and needless bloodshed. The book itself is no masterpiece, but it's hard to find English-language accounts of this campaign so points for trying.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of the lesser known WW1 campaign in the Balkans, I find little to criticize and much to recommend in 'The Gardeners of Salonika'. The title derives from a quote by French Premier Georges Clemenceau in about 1916 regarding Salonika: “What are they doing?” he demanded. “Digging! Then let them be known as ‘the gardeners of Salonika.’” Published in 1965 this book makes use of the memoirs of several of the chief participants in the conflict including some of the key generals, Frenchman Maurice Sarrail, Germans Erich von Falkenhayn, and Paul von Hindenburg, but notably missing Franchet D'Esperey, the key Serbian Field Marshal (Živojin Mišić), and the British Salonika commander George Milne. Also missing were memoirs of leading Bulgarian generals or leaders which might have given needed perspective on the Bulgarian Army such as Nikola Zhekov or Georgi Todorov who was in command during the collapse in September, 1918. The bulk of the references seem to draw on Cyril Falls 'History of the Great War, Military Operations, Macedonia, Vol. 1., written in the early 1930s. Overall, 'The Gardeners' is well-written, engaging account of the military realities and the geopolitical machinations, most of which centered around the status of Greece, which could certainly be called 'byzantine'.

Minor quibbles include a paucity of decent battle maps in the 1916 and 1917 period, with two decent ones on the climactic 1918 campaign. Another minor criticism, the account is heavily one-sided to the Allied perspective--cannot really blame an Englishman here, French may be accessible but German or especially Bulgarian might be expecting too much linguistically. There are a some photos of some key participants and a few providing some insight into the weather and forbidding terrain. Perhaps a photo of a mosquito would have been appropriate given the incredible numbers felled by malaria, especially among the British contingent! In fact, the British Salonika Reunion Association magazine was called 'The Mosquito' and ceased publication in 1969, just a few years after this book came out. Happily, there is a replacement magazine 'The New Mosquito' and a website, https://salonikacampaignsociety.org.uk still going! Perhaps the Serbs, Greeks and French have their own sites and who knows about the Central Powers? Overall 4.5 stars, rounded down for the minor reasons above. I would be interested if there are more modern accounts in English since Palmer, and a brief search revealed at least one: The Forgotten Front: The Macedonian Campaign, 1915-1918 by Jon Lewis published 2023! If time allows..

[Day · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is basically a condensed version of the official history written by Cyril Falls, with a heaping dose of Francophobia. If you're willing to commit to reading that instead (two volumes, totaling roughly 660 pages, and was re-printed in the later 90's), you will be much better served by doing so. Palmer's prose is pretty dire here; it comes across as downright archaic at points. That he constantly assumes the absolute worst of General Sarrail, the French commander, grows old very, very quickly.

Another alternative is Wakefield and Moody's Under the Devil's Eye, although they don't dig into the battles of the campaign to the same extent. Richard Hall's Balkan Breakthrough can provide a different angle on the Macedonian Front, as he writes from the angle of the Bulgarian Army. I understand that books in English on this particular sector of the war are fairly uncommon, but there is absolutely no reason to push yourself through this one.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/671288.html[return][return]Palmer wrote this in 1965, with access to the memoirs of all the major participants on all sides, as a comprehensive and masterly scholarly account of the Macedonia Campaign. He concentrates especially on the geopolitics, especially the squabbling between the armies' far-off masters in Paris and London debating what it should do (or indeed if it should still be there). The final chapter, where the commanding general manages to persuade/hoodwink the politicians into letting him try a September offensive against the Bulgarians, and they fold within days and partly as a result the whole war finishes a few weeks later, is very exciting and almost moving. There were several incidental details that I found very interesting:[return][return]i) the account of the trial and execution of "Apis" (Dragutin Dimitrijevi), which Rebecca West refers to in murky terms in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, but I found entirely comprehensible as presented here - Paai knew that Apis had already been responsible for the murders of King Alexander and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and didn't want any more names added to the list (and Paai was not the last Serbian Prime Minister to worry about rogue elements of military intellgence; unlike poor Zoran Djindji, he was able to get them before they got him); and[return][return]ii) the brief but intriguing and entertaining account of Essad Pasha's attempts to present himself as the legitimate ruler of Albania - obviously, while he was able to bring in extyra forces and territory, it was very welcome, but eventually the Allies decided they weren't all that interested in Albanian territory anyway.[return][return]One really annoying thing - the town of Veles is consistently mis-spelt Velea (except in the maps). And `tip is mis-spelt as Stip. As I keep on saying, if you're going to get the diacritical marks wrong, better not to use them at all.

[Kges1901 · Rating 5 out of 5]

very interesting history of Salonika