THE YPRES- TIMES
14
y.
By B. Granville Baker.
WONDERFUL and mysterious are the ways of the War Office, of any other
body of Olympians for that matter. Therefore* he who would be accounted
wise should never be surprised at anything the War Office may be pleased
to contribute towards the general Gaiety of Nations. This result is easily attained
by uprooting one or other faithful servant from a familiar sphere of activity into sur
roundings concerning which he is entirely unbiassed by any knowledge whatever. It
must have been this consideration that set me in motion towards Salonika from rest
on the peaceful Italian front, after years of front line in France. War time travel had
this advantage over the deadly precision to which international communications have
now been reduced, that you started feeling that anything might happen, firmly con
vinced with R. L. Stevenson, that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. Hope
required strong support at times, so for instance when Taranto settled down to com
plete inertia, and refused to provide transport across the Adriatic merely because German
U.-boats had been reported. However, there is generally a way out, and on this occasion
the Italian Admiral in Command found it. He was sending a destroyer across, and I
should sail in her. A pretty little ship who lived up to her name Animoso." She danced
over the heaving track made by the moonlight and crept into Valona harbour as a pale
golden dawn brought into high relief the mountains of Albania.
That feeling of anything might happen was almost painfully strong as the
Admiral's two-seater, another Animoso," with an Italian Petty Officer R.N., at the
wheel, plunged into Valona where early rising seems to be the rule. Everybody was
out in the street, men with all the day before them, women collecting small children
from under the hoofs of ponies that wandered about in strings led by absent-minded
Kutzo-Vlachs, and Italian carabinieri trying to look as if they did not mind the dis
order. But it must have been painful to those picturesque and useful officials. You
met them everywhere along the splendid high road constructed by those who claim direct
descent from Imperial Rome. Up in the hills overlooking the blue Sea of Adria were
the Headquarters of the Italian Army that was steadily transforming Albania, a villa
built not only in the style, but in the spirit of Imperial Rome. Here in this country of
great and varied natural beauty, Italy was overcoming those difficulties that con
fronted Rome, and with success except perhaps, in its campaign against the lesser
fauna, against which even Keatings may struggle in vain. This particular difficulty
reacts on the traveller's attitude towards places that should inspire him with reverence,
places with a picturesque and historic past, such as Agyrocastron.
As night falls on Koritza the mountains seem to close in until a sense of oppression
comes over you. This may possibly account for a certain touchiness among the inhabi
tants they are divided in allegiance between Greeks and Albanians, and this difference
became so marked in course of the war than an Inter-allied Commission proceeded to
examine the question on the spot'. This visit was considered a first-class historic event
by the townsfolk, so said the deputation that called upon me on my arrival. Courteous
gentlemen, they offered to show me the sights. There was only one sight really, it was
just across the market place, but as sightseeing should be conducted decently and in
order, the deputation formed up and escorted me until we stood below a small balcony.
The only one in the town, I gathered, but it had taken part in the making of history,
quite recently too, was you might say, still warm, for here the Inter-allied Commission
had gathered and looked down over the market place. A stirring sight it must have
been. All the school-children in white with blue ribbon colours of Greece, waving
