The city is in a certain sense an island, for it is surrounded on three sides by an almost uninhabited country, and on the fourth by the sea. It cannot be said to belong naturally to any State or race in particular, and no population looks to it as a centre of intellectual development and culture. But it is extremely important for the trade of many lands, and has consequently been fiercely contested by many peoples throughout the ages. It is this fatal attraction that has made its history such a tragedy. P. Risal, the author of the only modern work on Salonica, has rightly called it “_La ville convoitée_.” It is indeed better situated than any other in the Ægean; along the European shores of that sea it is half-way between the two extremities, at the head of the most sheltered gulf, at the outlet of the Vardar valley and consequently of the easiest road of access to the fertile lands of the interior. As Professor Hogarth has stated,[32] the other ports which might compete with it are either blocked by mountain barriers or surrounded by unstable populations. Were it not for malaria, the backward civilization and the lack of safety of its immediate hinterland, Salonica might have become an important agricultural and perhaps even industrial centre, but the farming methods of the neighbouring territories are extremely primitive and industry is non-existent. Its radius of commercial action is considerable. It is easier to send goods from any part of Macedonia and even from parts of Albania and Epirus to Salonica than to the ports of Albania; even the upper reaches of the valleys of some of the tributaries of the Danube are reached more easily from Salonica than from the Black Sea ports. Salonica is the junction of the railways from Constantinople, Uskub and Belgrade, and Monastir and Athens. [Illustration: THE GREEK NATIONAL FESTIVAL ON APRIL 7, 1917. M. Venizelos leaving the Church of S. Sophia, Salonica.] [Illustration: KING ALEXANDER OF GREECE VISITS A FRENCH CAMP. To face p. 158. ]