Correspondence between Field Marshal Lord William Birdwood and Lady Janetta Birdwood, 1916 and 1918 - Part 4

[*3 DRL. 3376 (15)*]
[*Capt. Drury Low 
of the Chatham
is taking home my 
French decorations 
for me - please 
let me know if 
you receive these 
all right. 
There are 3 
of them in 
one box. 
The Chatham will 
probably not be home 
till middle
February.*]

H.M.S. Lord Nelson.
Salonika.

15 Jan. 16

My own darling Jenny Jane.
Still no letters of any sort & as I wrote last,
I have had nothing since 30th November!! I can only hope &
imagine that I shall find a whole sack full of letters awaiting
me when I get down to Egypt. Having received no orders about
myself & as all my troops were being got off I have run over here
with dear old Admiral de Robeck, as I thought I might just
as well see our position here while in these parts, as one never
knows if I may or may not have to come up here again -
but I doubt it. Now I have got my orders which are
that my Dardanelles Army of 3 Army Corps which I have
had since Sir Ian left is now to be broken up & merged
into one Army in Egypt & I go back to my Australian
Army Corps. I shall be absolutely happy with this &
quite glad to be back with them all again. They have all  
gone on ahead of me to Egypt & I shall find them all there.  
I am only sorry for poor General Godley whom I shall have to  
displace & he will have to revert to the command of his  
Division - he is such a good fellow that I am quite  
sorry to have to do this - but so many more Australian  
troops are coming over that I daresay I'll be able  
to have an Australian Army before long in which  
case he can have a Corps again. I don't quite  
know where we will be in Egypt, but I rather

fancy my Corps will be at Tel-el Kabir, and I shall  
be glad to be out of Cairo. I gather I'll be directly  
under General Murray who has taken Munro's place. I
rather think Lord K. would have liked me to continue
to command my Army, but that they had to find a
place for Murray on his being relieved as Chief  
General Staff at the War Office.
It is a wonderful place this & I'm glad to have seen
it. I have brought Col. Wagstaff here with me &
General Mahon who is commanding here has been riding
round the position with us - it is a very strong one &
I should love to see it being attacked as we ought to
account for many Germans!
After Anzac the town itself seems palatial & it is quite
strange to find a General living in a comfortable furnished
house! The town looks really pretty from the sea,
running up as it does from the shore all up the side
of a big hill finishing up with old city walls all round
and an old castle on top. On close acquaintance though
it of course appears very squalid - a few large well
kept roads well lighted & with electric trams - but
directly you leave there you get to the miserable 
badly kept lanes just like an Indian village.
We went & saw a rather fine Greek Church - which 

2) 
had I believe originally been built as a  
Christian Church in the time of the Byzantine Empire.  
Then when the Turks came, it was converted into a 
Mosque & so remained until the Greeks took Salonica 
from the Turks 3 years ago & it is now again a Church - 
& a fine one with a lovely huge dome. The Turks had 
whitewashed over all the old mosaics,  but these are
now being recovered. The Greeks though are a miserable 
lot & do nothing. We happened to land on the big
day of the year - 14th Jan - their (& Russia's) New Year's
day. The streets were all crowded & Greek troops marching
through the town for a big parade. Officers with wonderful
blue & white feathers in their hats & mounted on small ponies - 
men all right, but not well booted - & certainly not fit for
much hard work in the hills unless they have much better
boots in their stores.
The streets altogether are a wonderful sight. British,
French, Greek & Servian soldiers everywhere, & it seems so
odd to see our own men walking about & driving their carts
about the place, all mixed up with the other nationalities 
- and all getting on well together. The Greeks
had a very large force here, but have withdrawn nearly all
these & now have only one Division.
The Admiral & I went to call on poor old King
Peter of Servia yesterday - poor old man I feel very

sorry for him, driven out of his country as he has been 
with all that remains of his Army - it is some of these 
who are here & fine stolid fellows they seem to be.
Genl. Sarail who commands the French is also C-in-C 
here & has our troops under him - a very fine looking fellow
with blue eyes & white hair. He dined here, & I called
on him yesterday - today I have to go & have dějeuner
with him &hope it may be not be a huge feast.
Unfortunately he doesn't speak a word of English. He is
evidently a man quite prepared to act on his own
responsibility which is a great thing, as two days ago
he sent in some of his engineers & blew up a big railway
bridge some miles off which cuts off the Bulgars from
attacking here. I fancy the Greek Govt. must be
very angry about it, but are helpless.
Cold - my goodness isn't it just cold here! The
first ride I went on with Genl. Mahon & the Admiral
I thought I should never get my hands and feet warm & there  
was such a bracing wind blowing through one. In spite  
of this our troops here are extraordinarily fit as the
weather is so bracing. Today it is snowing & horribly
cold & uncomfortable. To my astonishment I found Col.
Cox Cooke of the 32nd in command of a Brigade here &
I fancy doing very well in all the Pioneer work

3)
which is what they are doing here entirely in the 
way of making roads, digging trenches etc. I 
tried to see Cooke, but he was out when I went to  
his Brigade. 
I enclose a very nice telegram Lord K. forwarded me from  
Genl. Joffre which you may like to see & keep - it was 
nice of him writing to me. I much fear my little 
Genl. Brulard wants to kiss me before I leave! He
has sent to say that he has now received from France
the Star of the Legion of Honour for me & that he is 
particularly anxious to give me this personally - part of this 
ceremony is I believe being kissed, so I am anxious
to have it presented as privately as possible - though
I fear he wants a parade!
I enclose a copy of a rather divine little poem some
one made out on the night we evacuated Helles. A
General Maude wouldn't hurry up & insisted on
bringing on a valise with him, while a General
Lawrence (Lorenzo) who was commanding the rear guard was
fuming at being kept waiting - especially as he
was a very bad sailor & dreading the sea when he
embarked - & this was getting worse every minute!
18th I am finishing this on board the cruiser 'Chatham'
on my way to Egypt. Admiral de Robeck has given
her to me to do down in - a nice boat but she

shakes like anything & writing is difficult - however I
know I'll be overwhelmed with work & letters directly I
reach Egypt, so I'll post this when I get there. I had another
nice ride around Salonika before we left - just like home
and in places we were riding over lovely downs & through
6 or 7 inches of snow. All round our trenches was a good foot
of snow but the men all seemed fit &cheery. It is  
certainly a much nicer country than Egypt, & they all seem to  
like it. Then I returned to Mudros on Lord Nelson to find 
Genl. Brulard had arranged a farewell parade of all the
French troops there for me & to present me with the French
decorations. It really was quite affecting as the little
man seemed to feel it sincerely - my kindness to them &
my going. After going round the troops we formed up in a 
square when he made a most impassioned speech & then
decorated me - followed by kissing!!! I had always
thought the French kiss on such occasions was merely a
formal "peck" on one's cheek, but he literally fell on my
chest & embraced me & gave me 2 enormous kisses on
either cheek, with tears rolling down his cheeks!
It really was awfully nice of him & I felt perhaps
I ought to have been able to rise to the same! As it
was I made him a short reply of thanks. Later he
invested a lot of other officers & men with lower
orders & gave each of them a quiet kiss! Wasn't 
all the  men, but I think he did the officers. Among
the latter was Genl. Cunliffe Owen my R.A. General

4) 
who is just off for short leave home. If I see him  
before he goes I will get him to take with him by 
my French decorations for him to keep till I return
as I don't want to risk losing them out here - he
got one too on my recommendation - (ship rolling
& shaking a lot). Brulard had me escorted off the 
parade by Chasseurs d'Afrique, so went out of the 
way to do me all the honours he could, & I am 
quite sorry to leave the little man. Mind you
send me that cigarette holder for him, as I
know how touched he will be to get it. I  
have asked for an English decoration for him. 
After parade we went back to "Lord Nelson" when I  
said goodbye to the Admiral &went came on board  
'Chatham' to find quite to my surprise further 
honours. The Admiral had ordered her to instead 
of steaming right away to steam slowly round

the fleet - all the decks of the battleships 
were manned for me & they cheered as we 
passed, & finally on passing the flag ship after 
cheering me, the band played "Auld Lang Syne" -  
wasn't it awfully nice of them - an honour I  
fancy very seldom paid to a soldier & I felt  
it very much. I could only shout out my  
thanks through a megaphone as we cleared  
off. And so ends this chapter of our fighting. 
What I wonder is before us in Egypt? And 
I expect we will all be in France in April. 
The close association with the Navy during 
this brief war has been an experience of which  
I'll always be glad, for it so seldom comes 
in the way of any soldier. My first 30 years 
service, I have not known the Navy or its ways 

5) 
at all, while in this last war I have seen 
so much of them & have been on really dozens of  
their ships - battleships, cruisers & destroyers. 
I've had a nice time on all of them & made 
many good friends especially Admirals de Robeck  
& Thursby. 
By the bye do see if you can get a copy of 
a small poem by Kipling "If".  It is only  
about 4 or 5 verses all & I fancy you can get 
it in a form to frame & hang up. If so do
get it & give it to Chris to hang up near his 
looking glass & he can see it every morning when
dressing - it is excellent & I saw one of the  
officers on Lord Nelson had it, & liked it so much.
Also look out for the 'Anzac Magazine' when
it comes out as it will do in Feb or March.
It will be quite good & has been written by