Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

At the invitation of the Greek Prime Minister, M.Venizelos, Salonika (now Thessalonika) was occupied by three French Divisions and the 10th (Irish) Division from Gallipoli in October 1915.

Other French and Commonwealth forces landed during the year and in the summer of 1916, they were joined by Russian and Italian troops.

In August 1916, a Greek revolution broke out at Salonika, with the result that the Greek national army came into the war on the Allied side. The town was the base of the British Salonika Force and it contained, from time to time, eighteen general and stationary hospitals. Three of these hospitals were Canadian, although there were no other Canadian units in the force.

The earliest Commonwealth burials took place in the local Protestant and Roman Catholic cemeteries, and the Anglo-French (now Lembet Road) Military Cemetery was used from November 1915 to October 1918.

Mikra British Cemetery is situated approximately 8 kilometres south of Thessaloniki, in the municipality of Kalamaria (behind the army camp of Ntalipi).

Access is via the main entrance on Vryoylon Street, directly opposite the communal cemetery of Kalamaria.

The car-park is at 40.5777° N, 22.964° E, right on the junction at traffic lights.

Despite being so close to a major road and a bustling suburb of Kalamaria the cemetery is very quiet and peaceful.

The British cemetery at Mikra was opened in April 1917, remaining in use until 1920.

The cemetery was greatly enlarged after the Armistice when graves were brought in from a number of burial grounds in the area.

MIKRA BRITISH CEMETERY now contains 1,810 Commonwealth burials of WWI, as well as 147 war graves of other nationalities.

Either side of the Cross of Sacrifice are panels of the MIKRA MEMORIAL that record almost 500 names of nurses, officers and men of the Commonwealth forces who died when troop transports and hospital ships were lost in the Mediterranean, and who have no grave but the sea.  (They are commemorated here because others who went down in the same vessels were washed ashore and identified, and are now buried at Thessalonica.)

Sourced and submitted by Julianne T Ryan. 20 October 2014.  Lest we forget.