Word: salonika
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...Germans had put on a brilliant performance in the battle of supply. They ceased to threaten the port of Antwerp last week (see below), but for two months they had stood off the British and Canadians on its approaches. They had ruined Le Havre, Marseille, Salonika. Hundreds of miles behind the main battle line, they still had no less than 100,000 troops in Dunkirk, Saint-Nazaire, La Rochelle, Lorient, the Channel Islands, and Royan (covering Bordeaux). Where German soil was threatened, they fought like wildcats...
Beacon of the German exit was smoking, demolished Salonika (Thessalonike), chief port of Macedonia. It was through Salonika that the Germans had supplied the Aegean islands, through Salonika that they moved back out of the Mediterranean. The "coveted city" that "crouches on the edge of the hill and touches the sea with her feet" is a major Balkan port, served as an Allied base in World War I. Destroyed by a famous two-day fire in 1917, it was rebuilt as a modern city. Last week it was a shambles again; more than 50 ships had been sunk...
There were still an estimated five Nazi divisions in Greece, and the Nazis needed them. A British force of baby carriers and warships was blockading Crete. Allied planes bombed Salonika, port of entry for German refugees from the south, port of exit to the north. The Allied Italy-based Balkan Air Force helped Greek guerrillas, who claimed to have won most of the Peloponnesus and were even reported marching on Athens...
Wilson was born into a distinguished Suffolk family. One ancestor, Lord Raglan, commanded British forces in the Crimean War; another, Lord Cardigan, led the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava; an uncle, General Sir Henry Fuller Maitland Wilson, had a corps at Salonika in World...
Also full of potentialities were the Balkans. The Aegean Islands led to Salonika and the Vardar Valley. .The Balkans bubbled with rebellion, ready to turn on the German the minute his hand loosened its grip...