“The strategy and tactics of the campaign against Bulgaria landed the Greek headquarters at Doyrani on July 8th, and there nearly two-thirds of the Greek motor service was concentrated on July 10th. Greek headquarters decided to move sixty miles west to Hadji Beylik along the railway, and the vital question was how the cars for the service of the staff, and the lorries for the army service were to accomplish the journey. The single-line railway track was impossible on account of unbridged gaps, and also because the railway was in urgent demand for transport. The only semblance of a road was a mule track two feet wide, which led for the most part through a tangle of vegetation, and occasionally amidst a wilderness of rocks and stones. Eventually it was decided literally to force a road by sheer weight. The lorries took turns at leading, raced full speed for twenty yards, and then bashed their way through the jungle. After fifty yards or less the lorry would be brought to a standstill by the accumulation of rubbish piled up in front. This would be cleared away, the car would back, then start on a fresh charge. When a lorry got seriously damaged it would be replaced by another and taken in tow by a third. Sometimes explosives had to be used, and small rivers were bridged by the simple expedient of placing tree trunks in them until a car could cross. It was bumpy work.
“In Macedonia a road of any sort was a luxury, the best roads could not compare as regards surface with a fourth-class English roadway, whilst as often as not the motors had to make their own road as they went along. It must be remembered, also, that driving in war time is very different from under peace conditions. Bridges and culverts have usually been destroyed, telegraph lines sag across the road, and at night time are apt to get entangled in the driver’s neck with dire results. I, myself, have seen a goodly number of motor smashes, one when a temporary bridge gave way under an overloaded lorry, another when a contact mine exploded. The worst accident I remember, however, took place soon after the fall of Janina. A very old and depreciated lorry was being used to convey passengers down to Preveza, a distance of sixty-three miles, by a mountain road which for half its length was cut on the edge of a precipice. At one of the awkward places on the road the steering gear broke, and the car with its human freight dashed over the cliff and fell into the river.”