"A sting of remembrance!": collective memory and its forgotten armies

This study explores the development of the postwar memory - or lack of it - of the British war effort in the Balkans during the First World War. Focusing firstly on public memory, it examines the reasons that led to the exclusion of the British Balkan front experience from the popular memories of the war. These reasons have to do with the images and notions that dominated the myth of the war in relation to the conditions of warfare, the level of sacrifice, and the methods of political engagement on the British and Entente side, all of which would be seriously challenged by the inclusion of the memory of the Balkan front. The chapter then moves to the study of private memory and the way in which the ‘Salonika front' veterans saw the relation between their personal experiences and public sphere discourse, following their efforts either to bring their story within the mainstream narratives back in Britain or at least to perpetuate their personal narratives within some sort of collective discourse.