SALONIKA

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9613, 20 March 1917, Page 8

SALONIKA

THE ALLIED ARMY MANX DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME. In the course of a letter to relative: in Sydney. Alajor I. AI. Heilbron, officer in-charge of supplies with the British Expeditionary Forces in Salonika, says chat 1917 should be a great year for the Allies, but every man will be requilcu if the final overthrew of the Central rowers is to be oheeied. Alajor lieu oron gives, some interesting mrorxuuuoii concerning tne Allied army at Salonika. “i'Ossibiy the greatest change in the situation during lue last veur," he says,

"is to be touiia in Salonika —not actually in the loan, save lor tic concouise of Allied uniforms seen in the streets and cafes, but in tho huge encampments, on all sides suiiounuiag the tuna; on the quays where daily huge transports, carrying supplies of all kinds, orf-load, ana in tUo general cruelly activity pervading the atmosphere. A year ago a division landed and wended Us way towards Lembet, a small village on the northern outelcirt/s of the town; here temporary encampments were made,: but with the shortage of or Fiance and 1 engineer stores, not to mention food | supplies, everything was of tho crudest oruer and the discomfort s.nd contusion, shared equally by the French, was not concomitant with one’s usual ideas of operations. To add to our ( ’stress October proved a dismal month of rains, and the mud, for which Salonika should be justly famed, did not tend towards improving tbe general conditions. I remember the last morning at fjoiran station during the our chagrin to discover warm leather waistcoats lying at the station having been sent up immediately on arrival in Salonika. r i ! us was a warm, nice day, but a weik or so previous we had been freezing in a blizzard, and tho leather jerkins would have been prizes well worth holding. In these October days of 1915 supplies alone were not the sole ■ difficulties. Roads were, with few exceptions, iut tho merest tracks, impassable after rain. Railway sidings were few and bar between, and then only on the main Mqnastir or Constantinople lines and quite useless fo rthe transport of stores from tbe quay sides, where everything was being piled up in an unholy muddle, to their required sites.” ARDUOUS AIONTHS.

“A year has passed, and still tie transports pour in with troops, supplier and materials, but from the chaos has sprung some semblance of order. Things are still far from perfect, but here, where every possible difficulty is mot with, one feels some satisfaction for tho arduous months now passed, where fust in. rain and mud and frost, then in Hwaitaring heat, w© worked doggedly on. each day making some improvement,, formulating some new echo me, and rest-i ing only to begin again with still more difficulties to face and overcome. I yesterday inspected the Lembet Supply Depot, where a year since a solitary biscuit stack rose in gloomy solitude from out the mud, and what a changed picture presented itself. Entering by broad "ates, one comes upon the various offices of tho 0.C., accountant, and’ clerks. On the right as one enters aja the now bakeries, large comfortable sheds, spotlessly clean, from where fresh bread is daily baked, and sent out to all troops. A railway has now been put dowp. and feeds the bakery with ua flour and wood, while aU through the depot lines flow to the diflerent sections and intersecting these are broad metalled roads. Huge stacks of supplies are carefully built in their appointed areas, while on each stack is a neat tally board, giving all particulars as to the quantities, condition and date of arrival. Somewhat apart from the depot and the officers’ and men’s quarters, I viewed the miniature theatre, where performances are weekly held, and then passed on to the cookhouses, carpenter’s shop,, canteen, and finally sat down to a lunch! which would give points to many of) our Scottish hotels. After lunch I was, inveigled into a set of tennis on the new court, and even Wimbledon could not desire to be better , kept. Passing along another broad road, where ceaselessly day and night huge motor convoys travel along, we see the splendid Veterinary Hospital, where every comfort and care is bestowed upon wasted and weak animals. These big villages of wooden hutments represent the hospitals where the ill and wounded are tended with every care, and where expert advice on all diseases may be had free of charge from those who, in normal times, can only be approached by the wealthiest classes. In another plaice are tho big engineering yards, ordnance stores, and finally in these big sheds motor experts will take your old car, shaken to pieces with the Salonika roads, and after a lapse of a week or so, return it to you like new, revelling in paint and varnish, and running as silently as the most silent of ‘Silent Knights.’ Railways have now been laid to every important place, roads constructed, ground reclaimed, and now (November, 1916) we find an Allied Army, strong in numbers and strong in the knowledge that the base, the sinews of the forces in tho field, is ready to meet all requirements. "To those who ask what is the Salonika force doing? you now have the answer. Why has it not moved before? Because the pioneer work of a modern army is such that unprepared movement is but courting disaster, and time is with us; not so with the enemy; they are monthly weaker in . that we are so much stronger. They were prepared from the outset. We have had to marshal our forces in face of the enemy, but when their initial onslaught failed to batter down our defence, today the curtain rises for our benefit.”