'THte AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Photo by Snow. JAMES GRAFTON ROGERS - issistant Secretary of State MAY. 1931 No. 5 BANKING AND INVESTMENT SERVICE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD The National City Bank of New York and Affiliated Institutions THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK HEAD OFFICE: 55 WALL STREET. NEW YORK Foreign Branches in ARGENTINA . BELGIUM . BRAZIL . CHILE . CHINA . COLOMBIA . CUBA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC . ENGLAND . INDIA . ITALY . JAPAN . MANCHURIA . MEXICO . PERU . PHILIPPINE ISLANDS . PORTO RICO . REPUBLIC OF PANAMA . STRAITS SETTLEMENTS . URUGUAY . VENEZUELA. THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK (FRANCE) S. A. Paris 41 BOULEVARD HAUSSMANN 44 AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSEES Nice 6 JARDIN du Roi ALBERT 1 er INTERNATIONAL BANKING CORPORATION Head. Office: 55 WALL STREET, NEW YORK Foreign and Domestic Branches in UNITED STATES . SPAIN . ENGLAND anil Representatives in The National City Bank Chinese Branches BANQUE NATIONALE DE LA REPUBLIQUE D’HAITI Head Office: PORT AU-PRINCE, HAITI CITY BANK FARMERS TRUST COMPANY Head Office: 22 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK THE NATIONAL CITY COMPANY HEAD OFFICE OFFICES IN 50 LEADING 55 WALL STREET, NEW YORK AMERICAN CITIES Foreign Offices: LONDON . AMSTERDAM . GENEVA . TOKIO . SHANGHAI Canadian Offices: MONTREAL . TORONTO The National City Company, through its offices and affiliations in the United States and abroad, offers a world-wide investment service to those interested in Dollar Securities. London Offices 34, BISHOPSGATE, E. C. 2 11, WATERLOO PLACE, S. W. 1 THE FOREIGN S JOURNAL VOL. VIII, No. 5 WASHINGTON, D. C. MAY, 1931 The Russians Of Saloniki By ELEANOR WOOD MOOSE, Paris, France (AWARDED THIRD PRIZE IN CONTEST) AGAIN and again in the narrow crooked under the very shadow of snow-capped Hortiatis streets of Saloniki or in the tiny shops of mountain you arrive at the refugee village of Hari- this bizarre place you meet a people oddly laos, wherein the 100,000 Greek refugees from at variance with the rest. A tall sandy people with Asia Minor make some out at living in the most the high cheek bones of indescribable poverty and the Tartars and the vivid squalor, and here, in the blue eyes of the Far North. very center of this, lies the Very picturesque they are Russian camp. as they mingle with the But what a difference! smaller darker people of For the Russian camp, the South. The men are though only old French erect, martial in their bear¬ war barracks, has been ing, with crisp imperial transformed into a little moustaches or the side- Russian village. The adobi b u r n s of another era, walls have been washed a dressed always with some warm tan, flowers fill the attempt at a uniform. Not courtyards between the so picturesque but quite as barracks and clamber remarkable are the women blooming over the window —with faces prematurely sills. Immaculate curtains old through hardship and hang at the windows and suffering, but so immacu¬ about all is an air of amaz¬ lately neat and clean in this ing permanence and tran¬ city of uncleanliness. All. quility. a dignified courteous peo¬ Perhaps you have met a ple living in the city, but certain one of these not of it; a people aloof strangely different people, and apart; the Russians of and if so on this Saturday Saloniki. Photo by Shrader, Little Rock, Ark. afternoon you knock with I f you should take the ELEANOR WOOD MOOSE confidence at his door. His smallest most out-of-date welcome is overwhelming. tram which for all the world looks like the Tooner- You must come in. He is in the midst of giving ville trolley and on which you will pay two-thirds an English lesson; it is his mode of livelihood, of a cent fare, you will he on your way to the but you must wait; The lesson takes time, for Russian camp. In and out the trolley winds the Greek tongue is slow in mastering the Eng¬ through narrow crooked streets, on and on until lish gutturals, and your eyes roam about the 173 little room. The mud walls are a warm rich up and down the Mediterranean. One day, to¬ brown, on them hang pictures of rosehued Mos¬ tally without money, desperate, they had stolen cow, of Russian scenes and people. The furni¬ from the ship on to a Greek island. The Greeks ture is scant and patently made by your host had allowed them to stay, and so without money from packing cases, but the wood crackles or friends, in a strange and unfriendly country, warmly in the Russian stove and all is warm these children of the rich had begun life again. and cheerful and clean. But they were young together and you hear them Finally the lesson ends and your host comes speak of their fellow exiles wonderingly. Not to make you welcome. Tea hour has arrived and once do they mention themselves, their needs, al¬ his wife comes in from her round of lessons. She ways the others—their friends. is beautiful with the sandy beauty of her coun¬ But it is late, the afternoon has vanished. It try. Their three-year old son comes in for tea is so late that when you bid your host good-bye you and to kiss your hand with old-fashioned grace hurry to the little cafe nearby for supper. It is and courtesy, and finally the mother of your Saturday night and while you eat the savory Rus¬ hostess enters, with all the charm and beauty of sian soup, one by one of the members of the little old Russia in her manner. colony troop in to sit about the rude tables sipping It is a remarkable family to find in such cir¬ tiny glasses of vodka—taking their one weekly cumstances. But your tea is ready—warm fra¬ pleasure. Slowly you eat your soup, and from grant tea served boiling from the samovar. In its the scraps of conversation, from your own knowl¬ warmth you talk on and on, of world politics, of edge, you re-make the background of this little art or metaphysics, in English that makes you band of exiles. ashamed of your own and you fall silent, wonder¬ These are the men and officers of Wrangel’s ing. army, the Whites of Russia who for three years You know their story, for Saloniki is very held at bay the red hordes of anarchy and com¬ small. She was the daughter of the governor- munism. Theirs is an epic story. But prouder general of Warsaw, her mother a lady-in-waiting than of all their battles and victories are they to the Czarina. He was the son of one of Rus¬ of the fact that they kept the faith through an¬ sia’s land barons of the south. They met first at archy and world’s end. When the coming of the a children’s party in Petrograd. It was love at Germans into Russia would have meant the sup¬ first sight, but he was all of 12 and from the pression of Bolshevism and the continuation of Crimea, and she just 10 and from the north. But their Russia and their own survival, they had in the years to come fate wove a tangled skein. hurled them back. There had been days of horror War brcke over the world and he went with the when gradually, gradually, they were driven back. Imperial Guard as a junior officer. She worked From Odessa they had sent the women and chil¬ in a field hospital. She and her mother went to dren to safety while the men fought on. the front for the wedding of a brother, and the And what a fight this little army of 170,000 had revolution broke in all its fury. Hidden, they made against the forces of all Russia! But in saw this brother shot down on the streets of Kiev 1920 Poland made peace with Russia and the by his own men. They escaped to Odessa in a whole western army was thrown against them. blizzard, lying flat on the floor of a box-car. From Inch by inch they were driven, protected by the Odessa they were taken by ship to Constantinople. morasses. But that winter the morasses froze He, having fought through the war unwounded, hard. Only Sebastopol remained. Wrangel, the fell ill of typhoid and was captured by the Reds. greatest of all the Russians, had seen the inevi¬ Thinking him too near death for a bullet, they table, and in the harbor waited ships from all na¬ threw him into the snow. He was rescued by tions. And while the deep snows of winter held friends and later hidden three days in a mad¬ back their foes, the white army with colors fly¬ house. ing, had marched aboard these ships to follow Years after the party at Petrograd, they met their general into foreign lands. again as refugees. She with the Near East Re¬ Down the Bosphorus 170,000 strong they came lief, he as a stevedore, but they were young and that day of 1920. Over them flew the flags of all in love and they married. nations, and at the water’s edge waited wives and Being promised work in Germany, they sold sweethearts. their all.to go, but the work failed. Trying to re¬ Food had been scarce—the cold intense that turn, they were refused admittance by the Turks. winter in Constantinople, and the Turks were at No other country would accept them without visa their wits ends to care for these uninvited guests. or passport, and so for three months they cruised But in spite of hunger, cold and heart break, not 174 one Russian stole.