Macedonia

It was my first time to Thessaloniki. But my father, Walter, reminded me that I was not the first in our family to have been there!

My great uncle (my Grandma Crooks' brother), Walter Chambers, had served in the British Army there during WWI. He had been overseeing building of new roads in Greece, some of which, ironically, would be used by the Nazis a few years later.

I suppose that my great uncle was in the British Salonika Force (BSF), that formed part of an Allied front who's aim was to stop the southwards sweep of the Germans through the Balkans and into Greece. The Bulgarians had sided with the Germans, because they were not happy with the spoils they had won after the Balkans war of 1912 (which threw the Ottomans out from much of this land.). They wanted some of what Greece had taken!

But Greece had been sitting on the fence at the outbreak of WWI. Its Prime Minister wanted to side with the Allies, but its King (of a German family, remember, imported by the Great Powers to rule following Greek Independence) was naturally torn. Stalemate resulted.

Eventually, after two-and-a-half years, Greece did the right thing and joined the Allies, after King Constantine I abdicated. The Allied campaign was ultimately successful, and the German ‘empire’ had to wait another twenty years to invade and capture the Balkans.

The name of that dithering Greek king is ironic in my eyes, because ‘Constantine’ is a very special name in Greek history. This is because of Emperor Constantine's Christian affiliations and his standing for freedom over evil oppression. Perhaps if the king had been actually of Greek heritage, he would have got off the fence much sooner.

It was St Constantine’s day yesterday, May 21st. He was the Roman who fought and won a civil war in the fourth century AD. When he became Emperor, he put a stop to the persecution of Christians. His wife, Empress Helen, is also venerated on the same day. Apparently, she visited the Holy Land and not only found the cross on which Christ was crucified, but also three of the nails! Well… Even though it was a Tuesday, many of the churches we passed that morning seemed to be having services or festivals in their honour.

Constantine is probably most famous for the founding of Constantinople. My previous blogs have written about the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the fourth crusade. What I didn’t know, is that the Normans of Sicily, of which I have also blogged, sacked Thessaloniki in 1185, scaling its formidable city walls. What this shows, I suppose, is that Thessaloniki was on a very important route between western and eastern Rome. And worth sacking, as it was the second most important Eastern Roman city.

Thessaloniki is still the second largest city in Greece. Strictly - and perhaps controversially - it is a Macedonian city. It was named after princess Thessaloniki of Macedon in the fourth century BC. It only became part of the fledgling Greek state in 1912, after the defeat of the Ottomans by the combined Balkan states.

When the Republic of Macedonia renamed itself North Macedonia recently, the Greeks took that very badly; they deemed the act a slightly overt claim to a part of Greek territory (southern Macedonia.)

Anyway, this part of Greece is beautiful. It is hilly and surprisingly forested with pines, and many large, deciduous trees. There are also more olive groves than you can shake a stick at. There are many rivers emptying southwards into the north Aegean, and the crew of Missy Bear spent a happy day bird-spotting in the delta of the river Axios, just west of the city. We lunched at a taverna in the delta recommended by Rick Stein, eating locally-farmed ‘mussels with rice’.

Locally farmed mussels and rice

Back in the centre, the city walls have long gone. The Ottomans removed the sea-front defences to allow refreshing air into the city. All of the medieval charm was destroyed first by the great fire of 1917. A French architect was then employed to design a grand, grid-like city plan, with a square named after Aristotle. And then a great earthquake struck in 1978.

Roman mausoleum

Historical traces do remain. There is a Roman mausoleum, which subsequently became church, mosque and church again. Fragments remain of the triumphal arch built by Galerius after he beat the Persians. Galerius was a pre-Constantine emperor and a butcher of Christians.

A relief of the Roman triumphal arch showing trampled Persians

There is the amazing church of St Demetrius, who was a local, non-Christian of high-birth. Demetrius attained a senior rank in the Roman army of the early fourth century. But, he disobeyed his orders to persecute Christians, for which he was imprisoned, tortured and eventually run-through with spears!

Are the relics of Demetrius inside?

His remains allegedly lie in the church and it is an important pilgrimage site – we had to get in a long queue to get a brief glimpse.

And there is, of-course, the iconic White Tower. This edifice is an Ottoman construction on the location of the original Eastern Roman (‘Byzantine’) tower in the city walls. As well as a fortress, the Ottomans used it as a garrison and as a prison. Here, in the early 19th century as the empire declined, rebellious soldiers - ‘janissaries’ – were held and executed. Today, it is an excellent museum, and well worth a visit.

White Tower was known as the Red Tower due to the blood that flowed

The result of this chaotic history, is a city with block-structure of concrete, high-rise buildings. Still, some of the lower stories have interesting designs, many from the Art Nouveau era. And the blocks adjacent to the long, sweeping seafront swarms with interesting shops, boutique hotels and enticing bars and restaurants. It has a cosmopolitan feel, which I assume it always had.

City blocks close to the Aegean sea

Although Ottomans, Christians and Jews lived in separate ‘quarters’ of the city, they may have mingled in the various markets in the city. These markets still exist in their historic locations, and if you like all kinds of fish, or skinned pigs-heads, it is the place for you. The Ottoman influences remain most clearly in the food, which is much more cosmopolitan than normal Greek provincial fare. It’s a city to graze on mezze.  The Christian influences remain in the many Orthodox churches, and their proudly-devout congregation.

But most of the Jews are long gone from the city, that was sometimes referred to as the ‘Mother of Israel’. Half the Jewish population left after the great fire destroyed their homes and businesses. If you remember, from our Season II blogs, many of these Jews were ancestors of the refugees fleeing persecution in the Spanish peninsular. Many were brought here by the Ottoman hero Barbarossa, and his navy. The Ottomans were very tolerant, because they realised what value the Jewish communities brought to city life. Sadly, the Germans were less so. I understand that, of the 72,000 Jewish population, about 45,000 were sent to Nazi camps. And only about 2,500 survived!

[Now for an incidental and rare political point (stop reading now if you don’t want an argument). I believe that the October 7 incident was the final straw on the camel’s back, and that Israel do have the right to act as they are doing. Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are dedicated to eradicating the Jewish state (a parliamentary democracy) and replacing it with an Islamic theocracy. OK, creating a safe Jewish homeland smack-bang in the middle of a majority Arab region was probably always going to be problematic. The required level of empathy was and is often still lacking. But we are where we are, aren’t we. My motto for tolerance is “live and let live”, but as soon as someone announces an existential threat to you, backed by almost daily military violence, you must act decisively. Otherwise, you end up with a Hitler, or a Stalin, or a Putin, or (more covertly) a Raisi.]

I don’t know what my great uncle Walter would think of modern Thessaloniki. I certainly have no idea whether he knew why he had been sent here, or what he was fighting for. It was all part of keeping the global ‘balance of power’ of-course. He probably had as much clue as the poor Senegalese troops drafted to fight here by the French.

Anyway, thanks to him and his comrades two-decades later, southern Macedonia (and Thessaloniki specifically) remains Greek-speaking and Greek-orthodox, where you can drink fine local wines and eat Greek food, enriched by almost a millennium of Asia Minor influences.