Salonika

The new harbour, which was opened to navigation in Dec. 1901, allows the direct transhipment of all merchandise whatever may be the direction of the wind, which was previously apt to render shipping operations difficult. The harbour works consist of a breakwater 1,835 f t. long, with 28 ft. of water on its land ward side for a width of 492 ft. Opposite the breakwater is a quay 1,475 ft. long, which was widened in i9o3–o7 to a breadth of 3o6 ft.; at each end of the quay a pier 656 ft. long projects into the sea. Between the extremities of these two piers and those of the breakwater are the two entrances to the harbour. Salonika exports grain, flour, bran, silk cocoons, chrome, manganese, iron, hides and skins, cattle and sheep, wool, eggs, opium, tobacco and fennel. Other industries are cotton-spinning, brewing, tan ning, iron-founding, and the manufacture of bricks, tiles, soap, flour, ironmongery and ice. The spirit called mastic or raki is largely produced.

Province of Macedonia,

of which Salonika is the capital, is rich in minerals, including chrome, manganese, zinc, antimony, iron, argentiferous lead, arsenic and lignite, but some of these are unworked. The chief agricultural products are grain, rice, beans, cotton, opium and poppy seed, sesame, fennel, red pepper; there is also some trade in timber, live stock, skins, furs, wool and silk cocoons. Apart from the industries carried on in the capital, there are manufactures of wine, liqueurs, sesame oil, cloth, macaroni and soap. The principal towns, Seres, Vodena and Kavalla, are described in separate articles ; Tikvesh is the centre of an agricultural region, Karaferia a manufacturing town, and Drama one of the centres of tobacco cultivation. The total popu lation of Macedonia is, from a census of 1926, 1,511,00o. This total includes the large number of refugees who were settled here after 1922. The Greeks now form 88.8% of the population; there are no Muslims except those of Albanian origin. Bulgarians number about 77,00o, being 5.1% of the total.

History.

Thessalonica was built on the site of the older Greek city of Therma, so called in allusion to the hot-springs of the neighbourhood. It was founded in 315 B.C. by Cassander, who gave it the name of his wife, a sister of Alexander the Great. It was a military and commercial station on a main line of com munication between Rome and the East, and had reached its 'zenith before the seat of empire was transferred to Constan tinople. It became famous in connection with the early history of Christianity through the two epistles addressed by St. Paul to the community which he founded here ; and in the later defence of the ancient civilization against the barbarian inroads it played a considerable part. In A.D. 39o, 7,00o citizens who had been guilty of insurrection were massacred in the hippodrome by command of Theodosius. Constantine repaired the port, and probably enriched the town with some of its buildings. During the iconoclastic reigns of terror it stood on the defensive, and succeeded in saving the artistic treasures of its churches : in the 9th century Joseph, one of its bishops, died in chains for his de fence of image-worship. In the 7th century the Macedonian Slays strove, but failed, to capture the city. It was the attempt made to transfer the whole Bulgarian trade to Thessalonica that in the close of the 9th century caused the invasion of the empire by Simeon of Bulgaria. In 904 the Saracens from the Cyrenaica took the place by storm, and the inhabitants to the number of 22,000 were sold as slaves throughout the countries of the Medi terranean. In 1185 the Normans of Sicily took Thessalonica after a ten days' siege, and perpetrated endless barbarities, of which Eustathius, then bishop of the see, has left an ac count. In 1204 Baldwin, conqueror of Constantinople, con

ferred the kingdom of Thessalonica on Boniface, marquis of Montferrat ; but in 1222 Theodore, despot of Epirus, one of the natural enemies of the new kingdom, took the city and had himself crowned there by the patriarch of Macedonian Bul garia. On the death of Demetrius, who had been supported in his endeavour to recover his father's throne by Pope Ho norius III., the empty title of king of Salonika was adopted by several claimants. In 1266 the house of Burgundy received a grant of the titular kingdom from Baldwin II. when he was titular emperor, and it was sold by Eudes IV. to Philip of Tarentum, titular emperor of Romania, in 132o. The Venetians to whom the city was transferred by one of the Palaeologi, were in power when Murad II. appeared and on May ist, 143o, in spite of the des perate resistance of the inhabitants, took the city, which had thrice previously been in the hands of the Turks. They cut to pieces the body of St. Demetrius, the patron saint of Salonika, who had been the Roman proconsul of Greece under Maximian and was martyred in A.D. 3q6. In 1876 the French and German consuls at Salonika were murdered by the Turkish populace. On Sept. 4, 189o, more than 2,000 houses were destroyed by fire in the south-eastern quarters of the city. During the early years of the 2oth century Salonika was the headquarters of the Com mittee of Union and Progress, the central organization of the Young Turkey Party, which carried out the constitutional revo lution of 1908. Before this event the weakness of Turkey had encouraged the belief that Salonika would ultimately pass under the control of Austria-Hungary or one of the Balkan States, and this belief gave rise to many political intrigues which helped to delay the solution of the Macedonian Question.

When the first Balkan War broke out in 1912, Salonika sur rendered to the Greeks on the festival of its patron, St. Deme trios, Nov. 8, after 482 years of Turkish occupation. King George I. proceeded to what was now the second largest city of his kingdom, but was assassinated there on March 18, 1913, by a Greek, named Schinasi.

The Treaty of London of May 30, 1913, assigned Salonika to Greece, and the battle of Kinds in the second Balkan War of that year prevented the Bulgarians from approaching it. Salonika was becoming more and more hellenized when the World War brought it into prominence as the base of the Allied operations in the Near East. (See SALONIKA CAMPAIGNS below.) In 1916 a Venizelist revolution against King Constantine broke out there, and on Oct. 9 M. Venizelos arrived and formed a Provisional Government, which the Allies recognized, and to which Lord Granville was accredited as British representative. From Salonika this national government declared war on Nov. 23 against Bulgaria and Germany. On Aug. 18, 1917, a great fire destroyed a large part of the city, including the ancient church of St. Demetrios. After the War an arrangement was made by which Yugoslavia, now only three hours distant by rail, should have a so-called "Serbian Zone" in the harbour. After the proclamation of the Greek Republic, Salonika, as an impor tant military centre, often had a decisive voice in politics, and the large immigration of Greek refugees from Asia Minor has further hellenized the country round it. Salonika is rapidly becoming a great modern city and has been largely rebuilt since the fire of 1917. The main arterial roads have been widened and metalled and pavements added to them.

See General Sarrail, Mon Commandement en Orient, 1916-18 (192o) ; P. Risal, La Ville Convoitee, Salonique (1914); Greek Refugee Settlement (League of Nations, Geneva, 1926).