Australian artillery on the Salonika Front
The camera operator is unusually close to the artillery action in this British-made newsreel. It shows an Australian gun crew operating their weapon gun beneath a canvas shelter in the Greek port town of Salonika (now Thessaloniki). Opposing them are Bulgarian forces who, together with Germans, had forced the Serbian Army from the port. This Australian artillery crew seems comparatively relaxed in comparison to the usual grim scenes of battlefront action from this period.
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Australian artillery on the Salonika Front
The camera operator is unusually close to the artillery action in this British-made newsreel. It shows an Australian gun crew operating their weapon gun beneath a canvas shelter in the Greek port town of Salonika (now Thessaloniki). Opposing them are Bulgarian forces who, together with Germans, had forced the Serbian Army from the port. This Australian artillery crew seems comparatively relaxed in comparison to the usual grim scenes of battlefront action from this period.
Year: 1915
Length: 0:48
Production Company: Eclair Films, London
Source: British Film Institute
Catalogue Reference: NFSA title: 20923
Location: Thessaloniki, Greece
Tags: Australia, artillery, soldiers, battlefront, Salonika, Greece
Subject: artillery, Salonika Front, Greece
Austro-German forces and the Bulgarian Army invaded Serbia in October 1915. By the time Allied forces landed in the Greek port of Salonika (now Thessaloniki) in Macedonia to assist the Serbian Army, it was too late to prevent the defeat (and subsequent retreat) of Serb forces. The Allied troops withdrew to the Salonika town area and established an extensive system of trench lines as a defence against the Bulgarian and German forces threatening them on the frontier.
This film clip was originally screened as a story in the Topical Budget (no.267-2, released 7 October 1916) a silent newsreel which ran from 1913 to the end of the First World War. Many of its stories have survived, and are now housed and owned by the British Film Institute.
Australian artillery on the Salonika Front
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Thessaloniki, Greece
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0:00
Intertitle: ANZACS FIGHTING THE BULGARS. Australian artillery in action against the Bulgarians on the Salonika Front
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0:06
Australian soldiers firing field artillery