A SEA OF FLAME

Otago Witness, Issue 3327, 19 December 1917, Page 25

A SEA OF FLAME

THE BURNING OF SALONIKA. GREAT DISASTER IN A BIBLICAL SETTING. The old city of Salonika has now added another moving chapter to its long tale of war and catastrophe in the shape of a most destructive fire, which broke out on Saturday, and is still, here and there, continuing, although the worst is over (wrote H. Collinson Owen to the Daily News, London, from Salonika on August 21). One point should be made at once—namely, that the military damage is nil, and there has been no loss of life among the Allied armies. Some 4200 houses and business premises, including all the hotels and practically every important commercial building in the city, have. been destroyed, and the number of homeless people is at present estimated at between 80,000 and 100,000. The portion of the city destroyed consists largely of the Jewish quarter. The loss of life is said to be small. My attention was first attracted to the fire shortly after 4 p.m. on Saturday. From a flat roof about 200_yards from the sea one could then see that a serious fire was in progress in the north-western part of the city. At that time the cijy, except for the immediate neighbourhood of the fire, was quite undisturbed by the event. Half an hour "or so after I first saw the fire from the roof there came the first indication that Salonika was generally aware that something was happening. From the cobbled streets below came the distracting sound, so typical of Salonika, of scores of springless native carts rattling and bumping along. The threatened citizens away up the hill were mobilising the local transport for the conveyance of their furniture from the danger zone. The hot Vardar wind, which for two whole days had been blowing without cessation, was pushing the fire along in a straight line from west to east. DISTRACTED POPULATION. The houses in all thw quarter of the city, which stretches away up phe hill to the old ramparts, may be described as mere combustible material. They are old and full of wood, and the fire raged along them with incredible speed. But for the time being it was proceeding merely from west to east, and the general opinion then and later was that only that portion of the city north of the Rue Egnatta was in danger, and that, even if the fire came as far south as the main street, this would prove something of a barrier and save the commercial section of the city from there to the sea. But when the time came the fire leaped across the Rue Egnatia without a pause. At about 6 o'clock I went up into the- fire area beyond the Rue Egnatia. It was an extraordinary sight, a scene which but for the sewing machines and smashed wardrobe mirrors which littered the narrow streets and alleys might have been plucked from Biblical times. In this part of the Jewish city all the Jews preserve their ancient costumes, and the streets were full of a many-coloured crowd of men, women, and children, sobbing, shouting, and imploring. Women were wringing their hands and crying lamentations such as no doubt people of their race cried thousands of years ago in many such a scene. From every door and hole and corner people staggered, bearing all sorts of useless household goods. ANCIENT FIRE ENGINES. It is impossible to paint a description 'of this frantic crowd trying to save its treasured rubbish, much of it German, the rush and uproar of the flames and the crying of distracted and terrified peGple, the shouts of drivers who had dragged their carts across the narrow streets. And amid all this staggered hundreds of native por-, ters, who had also been mobilised and carried on their backs a most extraordinary variety of heavy and bulky loads. To combat the fire in this quarter there were a few ancient boxes misnamed fire engines worked by handles. One of them was marked "Sun Fire Office, 1710." and it must certainly have been the original model! But even if the engines were any good, water was scarce or non-existent. From time to time fresh patrols of troops of the various Allies came up, and here and there officers were attempting to organise and direct. There were many pitiable scenes, but there was no time to'think about them. And it is only fair to the people to say that they behaved very well. There was never any real frantic panic, only grief and wailing, and later on in the night, when it seemed that all Salonika had gone, this was succeeded by a general apathy in which nobody seemed to care about anything. By then it was the normal sight to see a now street afire, and tha refugees, who were lying everywhere on their goods and chattels" near the port, looked on with apparently unseeing eyes. By 9 o'clock the fire, after running in a long, straight line east, turned south in obedience to jthe wind and leaned the Rue Egnatia in its stride. By 10 I had decided to become a refugee myself. A little whilo after the flat roof was ablaze, and by 11 all the streets running near and parallel to the water's edge were repeating the same scenes, but on a larger scale, as had been witnessed a few. hours before away up the hill. By midnight everybody had realised that the whole sea front was doomed, and then the flames executed a quick flank movement just short of the White Tower, so that the only exit from the town was towards the Monastir road. BRITISH HELP,.

Long before this time belter methods had got to work; hoses were run out from navy lighters near the quay wall and the British army did good work with two modern fire engines; but it was all merely like shaking one's fist at the fire. From now onwards every effort was directed to helping and saving the refugees, and the admirable transport services of tho British army and the allied armies were at work. Lorries and motor cars were brought in in apparently unlimited numbers. I saw scores and scores of motor lorries loaded up with men, wonun, children, and babies, and their poor effects, and it was heartrending to see the way in which tho officers and men behaved to the multitude of distracted or numbed people of whoso language they understood not a word. " Come on, mother, we'll hand the kids up afterwards!" I remember one man saying to a wrinkled dame in a oomio opera

costume, and that sort of homely little touch was being repeated a dozen times a minute. ~ , At this time it seemed as though the only exit from the town would bo cut off and that the sea would be the only escape for great numbers of the multitude. On the one crowded line of communication there were scenes of great anxiety. Hero again the Navy came into service. All the lighters possible were run into the quay wall and crowds and baggage were conducted or carried on board. One cannot imagine greater solicitude than our men displayed, and everybody Avorkerl like niggers in evacuating the homeless crowds by road and sea. And with the front now beginning to blaze, and apparently the whole city one mass of flame, one cannot imagine a more grim and fantastio sight than the escaping multitude, who awoke from their dumb inertia as they saw some chance of help, and climbed into the motor lorries amid a babel of cries and counter-cries, with hero and there a distracted mother raising her voice in a hoarse scream for a missing infant. AN ARCADE OF FLAME. By the time the front was blazing in one great cliff of orange and white light, practically all the people had been got out of harm's way. Then we stood here and watched the familiar buildings, which, after a year or two years:' residence, we knew as we know home, disappear one by one. Venizelos street was an arcade of flame, with shops crashing down and clouds of fire shooting up. On the front the new Hotel Splendid© was a melancholy glory of flame and ruin, with its spacious new restaurant and tea rooms gone after a few months of life. But the strangest sight of all was the Place de la Liberte, the centre of Salonika life, with its crowded cafe and terraces, where the Allied military bands played three days a week. At about 2.30 its destruction began. It was a sad sight to see the beginning of the destruction of the Cercle des Etrangeres,\ the one real club, and a good one, founded some 40 years ago by a British Consul, and the scene of innumerable meetings and new friendships among British officers here dowji from the line for a few days. » And at something after 4, sated with seeing the raging destruction, I turned from the blazing front and began to think of seeking a lodging somewhere in the countryside up on the Monastir road, along which the- refugee convoys were still rumbling. The fire has now practically exhausted itself. Everything possible is being done by the Allied armies for the thousands of refugees who are camped in the countryside round Salonika.