November i, 1917' 
LAND & WATER 
Our Right Flank 
By H. Collinson Owen (Editor of The Balkan News). 
13 
THE left flank of the Western front runs down to the 
sea at Xieuport, where it is held by British troops 
backed by British sea-power. And— a fact which is, 
p)erhap)s, not often recognised — the right flank of the 
Western front is also held by British troops backed up by 
British sea-power ; for the real right flank of the Western 
front is not on the frontier of Switzerland, nor yet on the 
Adriatic, but on the Gulf of Orfano, in Eastern Macedonia, 
where the British trenches run down to the .Egean Sea. 
A journey to this part of our long Balkan line would dispel 
in the mind of anybody who held it the idea that our mis- 
named " Salonika Force " is grouped in and around the city 
which is fondly described as the Pearl of the /Egean. The 
land way to Stavros and so on to the riglit flank of the Allied 
line nins along the broad valley which lies beyond the first 
barrier of high liills that shut in Salonika. This broad valley 
is for the most parjt filled in by the two large lakes of Langaza 
• and Besik. Only five or six years ago, when the world generally 
had barely heard of the existence of Salonika, this valley must 
have been one of the most primitive and isolated stretches of 
country in Euroi)e. 
• Salonika fias its cinemas, and electric tramcars, and its 
SaloHtciennes who follow with great eagerness the latest trend 
of fashion ; but cm Lake Langaza, ten miles away across the 
hills, there are fishing boats which are probably the exact 
counterparts of boats used two thousand years ago— they 
could not possibly be more- primitive. Here, in this valley, 
up to four or five years ago. the roaming comitadji had it all 
his own way. An Anglo-Greek with whom I was talking 
recently said that in Langaza itself — a large picturesque 
village, where nearly ever\- ciiimney-pot shelters a stork's 
nest —he had met a young (ireek of less than thirty, who had 
been leader of a " band " in this neighbourhood, and who 
rlaimed sixty Bulgarsas his oVn portion. His special beat was 
the road out from Salonika up to the valley— now a broad 
highway lined with Allied camps and innocent of 
brigands. 
Along the valley itself ran the famous Via Ignatia, the old 
Roman road, starting from near Durazzo on the Albanian 
coast, which linked up Rome and Constantinople. One can 
see little or no trace of it now. The road to Stavros is merely 
an improved track, and where it crosses the beds of water- 
courses it is non-existent twenty minutes after a fall of rain 
in the mountains. St. Paul walked along every foot of the 
valley. The Via Ignatia. ran through Salonika itself, along 
what is now known as the Rue Ignatia, one of the most crowded 
cosmoix)litan. uncomfortable and noisy streets in all the uni- 
verse.* It climbed over the liills past the twin and beautiful 
peaks of Hortiach and Kotos which dominate the city, dipped 
down steeply into the valley, and so on towards Stavros, and 
along the coast to Constantinople. 
Roman civilisation was the last to touch this valley. Since 
the Romans went, Macedonia has known only one long endless 
succession of warring tribes, none of whom ever brought 
with them much be\'ond the sword and sudden death. And 
now the British are making war here— one of the very few 
virile races of Europe which had i\.ot already adventtired into 
. Macedonia. 
For the tinje being, at any rate, this part of Macedonia 
behind our lines is jx-rfectly happy and prosperous. We puslied 
our way through drove after clrove of beautiful sleek cattle, 
very like our Alderney breed but rather bigger. In each one 
of the occasional \illages, swarms of chubby children rushed 
out at the sound of the car to cheer and shout at the" Johnnies," 
and all the British here from general to private are plain 
" Johnnies." Big herds of goats scattered in absurd terror 
to right and left of the track. Past Lake Besik there is a good 
deal of cultivation, and everj-thing seemed as placid and as 
content aS' could he. 
Macedonia is by no means all bare mountains, shimmering 
with the heat in summer, and icy with the wind <)f the ^'ardar 
in winter. Stavros is as charming and pictunsiiue a spot as any 
in Euioix-, with the bine waters of the (iulf of Orfano lapping 
gently into the bay, and its beautiful green wooded mountains 
which nin down the left finger of the Chalcidice Peninsula to 
Mount Atlios at, the end. In a happier or more accessible 
country, tiie swelling hills would be dotted with the white 
villas of the rich, and steam yachts would know its pleasant 
anchorage. The bathing, as 1 can \ouch, js excellent. Tliere 
would certainly be a casino, and Monte Carlo would embark 
oi) a campaign of intensive rival advertising. But as things 
*This article had progrcsBed tlius far wlien somebody came into the 
room, t" ?uv that "loule la rtl/e hru'c" Jgn.itia Street t'as changed coii- 
6idCTat>ly since then. 
are, Stavros is one of the lost corners of the world. It is on 
the road to nowhere, the railway having completely outclassed 
the Via Ignatia ; or rather, it would have been on the road to 
nowhere had not the British, waging a war which has taken 
them into the most unexpected places, dropped down into this 
corner also. As it is, Stavros is the beginning of the last stage 
of the journey to our Right Flank A few miles further along 
the coast our trenches run down into the sea, and beyond that 
the Bulgar and the Boche hold sway. 
And having at last arrived at our Right Flapk it is perhaps 
a httle difficult to know what to say about it. The military 
expert would no doubt find a great deal to enlarge upon, but 
for my part, I saw only the same forbidding mountain barrier 
which eveiA'where confronts the British on their long Balkan 
front— a front which, it is perhaps not generally recognised, 
is much the same length as the one we hold in France. Our 
land and sea and air forces were showing activity. A 
monitor had slipjied out into the blue water, and was sending 
sonie " heavy stuff " over into the Bulgar territory'. An 
aeroplane droned overhead on some private mission of its 
own, and one of our batteries was barking spasmodically. 
But this is the small change of war, and leaves little to be said 
about it at this time of day. For the rest, one knew that our 
infantry was keeping its unceasing watch down in the valley 
there , as it has done for- many long months past with very little 
relief ; with tier upon tier of Bulgarian positions rising ahead 
of them, culminating in the great mass of Pilaf Tepe which is 
something over 6,000 feet high. 
Apparent Deadlock 
At a dinner thaf evening in a pleasant white-washed room, 
the largest to be found in the deserted Greek village of X, 
the Brigadier asked, with what I thought a quizzical look in 
his eye, " Well, what do you think of it ? " Unfortunately 
I had to confess that I had nothing to suggest. The layman 
can sometimes bring forward startling proposals for the benefit 
of the expert, but as far as our Right Flank is concerned, 
he was silent. There was only this to be said — that if we can 
find no particular comfort in contemplating the Bulgar posi- 
tions, he can find none in looking at ours. And with this, 
at least, the Brigadier agreed. 
It is a most interesting country this, where the Struma 
widens out into Lake. Tahinos before it reaches the sea. As 
our car hummed up the long hill road to headquarters, a 
beautiful prospect of land and sea was unfolded, with the coast 
stretching towards Kavalla in the east (the richest tobacco 
region in the world) and the mass of Mount Athos just faintly 
in view to the south: It is a region with strange and large 
poisonous insects that bite freel}^ ; a region where the heat can 
be fierce in the summer ; where thistles grow to such giant 
size that they make the most patriptic Scotsman feel strangely 
humble ; and where there is a tiny but awkward visitor known 
as the sand fly (although he is common to all Macedonia) 
whose bite produces a very rapid and debilitating fever. 
It is a country very rich in archteological remains,- and 
possibly our presence here during the war will give an impetus 
to theiiexplorationwhen the war is over. The site of ancient 
• Ampliipolis is in the No Man's Land between our trenches 
and the Bnlgars, and what the "ancient Athenians prized and 
were verysorVy to lose at the hands of Philip, the modern Greeks 
gained through the g(K)d fortune of the last Balkan War— 
and lost when, by Constantine's treachery of 1916, the Bulgars 
came down through Rupeh 
As already indicated, there are more things to fight against 
than merely the Bulgar. On two successive nights four visitors 
slept in the " guest chambers " improvised in a tumble-down 
hojase near to headciuartcrs. The rooms were as spick and span 
as British army cleanliness could make them. But the sand 
fly was not to be denied. All four were liberally bitten by 
these tiny and irritating pests, which pass serenely through 
the meshes of a mos((uito net. Of the four, three went down 
with sand-fly fever within a few days. On the way l)ack along 
the valley my friend and I bathed in Besik Lake, 
not far from some anoient wann sulphur baths, whose springs 
bubble uj) only ;i few yards from the shore. It was a blazing hot 
day— one of the hottest wc have had out here— but we kept 
our sun-helmets <in in the water and rejoiced in rude health. 
Three days later niV friend was riding his horse somewhere 
far up the Seres Road, when he incontinently fell off it. 
" Sand-fly " had claimed him, and he was picked up with a 
tfinjx-rature of over 104. It is a little way Macedonia has— 
to trip you uji just wlien you are feeling that you are proof 
against anythiiii^ her climate can do. 
