My Grandfather, Sir Wilfrid Joseph Sim was a lance corporal in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, which in 1914 occupied German Samoa. In 1915 he then took commissioned rank with a regular Scottish regiment, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, with whom he spent 18 months in Macedonia during the Salonika campaign. He received the Military Cross and the Médaille d’honneur (from the French government) for gallantry in action. He was discharged in 1919. As I was only very young when he died I really had no idea what he had been involved in & to see the British flag on his coffin blew my mind. Finding out he was decorated for Gallantry also blew me away. Over the years I have researched him & now I finally find video footage & voice recordings of the men involved in this campaign. It was a battle to survive the conditions & disease let alone the fighting when it occurred. Sir Wilfrid survived & returned to New Zealand & was involved in Law & Politics where he gained his Knighthood.
My Gt Grandad fought in Salonika. He joined up initially with the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and was transfered to the Machine Gun Corps. I have both his Tags and MGC insignia and his Salonika Association badge, but I know very little about his service record as they are part of the burned documents from WWll. I know he suffered terribly with Malaria, I have a photograph of him, he looks almost skeletal, and it caused his early-ish death after the war.
The Allies were so effective in defending Greek interests they pushed the border so far up north interretories where there were no Greeks. Resultantly, in the Greek civil war in 1945 this caused the ethnic cleansing of lots of slav Macedonians who were indigenous to the lands for 1000 of years. Especially around Prespa and Dojran Region. Paradoxically in modern day politics the North Macedonian accession into the EU was haunted and lifted by the Greek Veto and geographically the lake of Prespa was used to sign the deal. Thanks to the Allied forces. Alas not many will remember this and move forward as we have new challenges. But for Greece and Bulgaria until this day need to stop punishing North Macedonia. But as I write this both Bulgarian and Greek vetos have been lifted. So imagine 100 years into the future how much these frontier have influenced our lives until today.
I live in Salonica Rd in Brisbane Australia. My road is crossed by Gallipoli and Anzac Roads. There must have been Australian troops at the Salonika campaign.
@@aleksaculjak7917 Bulgaria was allied with the central powers. Serbia(and Greece) with the entente. You're confusing the second Balkan war in 1913 with the Great war.
@@CaptainHarlock-kv4zt bruh no, but Bulgaria joined the war only because victory was almost certain when Germany sent it's army to the Serbian front to aid the useless Austrian army so Bulgarians could steal Serbian territory. Bitchy move, still lost the war tho
We had a population which was NOT Bulgarian, Serbian or Greek. We of course had minorities. We simply had a Slavic population like the difference between a croat and serb. Actually our DNA is different to Bulgarians what is similar is our language which is a linguistic connection. Macedonian never sided with Nazi only the pro Bulgarian Macedonians did. Over 100 years we have gone alot of seperate ways from Bulgarians and the split started during the Macedonian awakening. Our problem as a nation is we are cursed in the worst geography that is a blessing and curse. The fact is even in ancient times Macedonia was mixed with Thracians, Paoeonians, Dardanians, Macedonians Greeks etc. What united us we were all born in the Geographic region of Macedonia.
1:46 Actually the greatest number of the evacuating ships were Italian (little wonder given the proximity of Italy to Albania and Montenegro) although the French and the British sent many too.
My Grandfather, Sir Wilfrid Joseph Sim was a lance corporal in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, which in 1914 occupied German Samoa. In 1915 he then took commissioned rank with a regular Scottish regiment, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, with whom he spent 18 months in Macedonia during the Salonika campaign. He received the Military Cross and the Médaille d’honneur (from the French government) for gallantry in action. He was discharged in 1919. As I was only very young when he died I really had no idea what he had been involved in & to see the British flag on his coffin blew my mind. Finding out he was decorated for Gallantry also blew me away. Over the years I have researched him & now I finally find video footage & voice recordings of the men involved in this campaign. It was a battle to survive the conditions & disease let alone the fighting when it occurred. Sir Wilfrid survived & returned to New Zealand & was involved in Law & Politics where he gained his Knighthood.
Congrats for your upload! Greetings from Greece.
My Gt Grandad fought in Salonika. He joined up initially with the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and was transfered to the Machine Gun Corps. I have both his Tags and MGC insignia and his Salonika Association badge, but I know very little about his service record as they are part of the burned documents from WWll.
I know he suffered terribly with Malaria, I have a photograph of him, he looks almost skeletal, and it caused his early-ish death after the war.
The Allies were so effective in defending Greek interests they pushed the border so far up north interretories where there were no Greeks. Resultantly, in the Greek civil war in 1945 this caused the ethnic cleansing of lots of slav Macedonians who were indigenous to the lands for 1000 of years. Especially around Prespa and Dojran Region.
Paradoxically in modern day politics the North Macedonian accession into the EU was haunted and lifted by the Greek Veto and geographically the lake of Prespa was used to sign the deal. Thanks to the Allied forces. Alas not many will remember this and move forward as we have new challenges. But for Greece and Bulgaria until this day need to stop punishing North Macedonia. But as I write this both Bulgarian and Greek vetos have been lifted.
So imagine 100 years into the future how much these frontier have influenced our lives until today.
I live in Salonica Rd in Brisbane Australia. My road is crossed by Gallipoli and Anzac Roads. There must have been Australian troops at the Salonika campaign.
As a Greek I must admit that the Bulgarian army during WW1 is admirable for his bravery and toughness.
Yes, most famous for their valiant move of stabbing Serbia in the back
@@aleksaculjak7917 Bulgaria was allied with the central powers. Serbia(and Greece) with the entente. You're confusing the second Balkan war in 1913 with the Great war.
@@CaptainHarlock-kv4zt nah ww1 counts as backstabbing as well
@@aleksaculjak7917 You mean that Bulgaria and Serbia were allies before the war ? ? ?
@@CaptainHarlock-kv4zt bruh no, but Bulgaria joined the war only because victory was almost certain when Germany sent it's army to the Serbian front to aid the useless Austrian army so Bulgarians could steal Serbian territory. Bitchy move, still lost the war tho
Monastir have nothing with serbia it is a bulgarian town in macedonia
My great great grandfather was there he was a driver for the engineers
Macedoina had a bulgarian population
And serbian, and albanian
We had a population which was NOT Bulgarian, Serbian or Greek. We of course had minorities.
We simply had a Slavic population like the difference between a croat and serb. Actually our DNA is different to Bulgarians what is similar is our language which is a linguistic connection. Macedonian never sided with Nazi only the pro Bulgarian Macedonians did. Over 100 years we have gone alot of seperate ways from Bulgarians and the split started during the Macedonian awakening.
Our problem as a nation is we are cursed in the worst geography that is a blessing and curse.
The fact is even in ancient times Macedonia was mixed with Thracians, Paoeonians, Dardanians, Macedonians Greeks etc.
What united us we were all born in the Geographic region of Macedonia.
1:46 Actually the greatest number of the evacuating ships were Italian (little wonder given the proximity of Italy to Albania and Montenegro) although the French and the British sent many too.
SERBIA !!!
I worked in the refugee camps on the Greek - Macedonian which were just a few kilometres from the WWI front lines - +35C in summer to -15C in winter.
sometimes +40 in summer and -30 in winter