Anchors Aweigh, Again
Given the wartime conditions, new travel arrangements would not congeal immediately. Meanwhile, the nurses and doctors shopped for flea powder and other niceties, and they toured the Acropolis together. On the evening of October 6, they were able to board a ship bound for Thessaloniki/Salonica. Apparently, the ship was better than the last one, as the diary of Team Leader Mary Gladwin scarcely says anything about it.
Sailing north, its prime objective was to not attract the attention of Austro-Hungarian warships in the Aegean Sea. Wartime boarding parties might be tempted to not respect Red Cross neutrality; they might seize medical supplies, or even a doctor or nurse. Thus, the medical team’s ship would follow an arduous route - please see the annotated 1914 map in this article - hoping to avoid warships’ notice by not sailing in the middle of the Aegean.
Today, we think of Austria as landlocked and mountainous, but its past empire had extended to the Adriatic Sea, from which Austrian frigates fought battles against those of other European powers to keep the Mediterranean open to Austrian shipping.
Looking at the map, we see that the route went from A (Athens) to T (Thessaloniki), first via the Euborean Gulf - more a strait than a gulf - a natural inland waterway, with entry points too narrow to permit large warships from using it. The gulf was safe, in that ships traveling in it could not be seen from the Aegean, but it is infamous for its dangerous currents, which change direction abruptly and batter ships. Mary Gladwin wrote that she was horribly seasick on this leg of the trip. After exiting the gulf, the ship probably hugged the shore the rest of the way. Distant warships were seen, but they did not bother to approach it. Thessaloniki was reached without incident on October 9; the rest of the journey would be made overland: mostly by rail, sometimes by horse-drawn carriage, and once even by ox cart!
