For the last few years, team member Julie Adams has been researching the collections made by Paul Denys Montague in New Caledonia in 1914. Here she describes a recent visit to Greece and Macedonia to learn more about his life, and untimely death, in World War One.

In May, I joined a tour to the World War One battlefields of northern Greece and Macedonia, organised by the Salonika Campaign Society. 2015 marks the one hundred year anniversary of the beginning of this often-overlooked campaign. The Society seeks to remember those involved and draw attention to those who lost their lives.

2015 also marks one hundred years since Paul Montague left Cambridge to go and fight in the war. He had returned from fieldwork in New Caledonia in 1914, and based himself at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology where he began to rapidly write up his notes in preparation for publication. Having completed a rough draft of a book he planned to call ‘Ethnographical Notes from the Houailou Valley, New Caledonia’, he left them in the care of his mentor, Alfred Cort Haddon, and went off to war. He joined the Royal Flying Corps and learnt to fly in Egypt. In 1917, he was posted to Salonika where his plane was shot down on 29 October. His grave has never been found.

Driving out from the city of Thessaloniki on the tour minibus, the first thing that struck me about the region was its beauty, something I’m sure Montague would have enjoyed. One of his former flying colleagues recalled that Montague managed to find time between flying to pursue his love of the natural world: ‘he could usually be found embedded in the thatched roof of some old cottage … A tug on his boots and he would emerge, grimy but grasping a clutch of eggs’.

The landscape around Thessaloniki

Not far from the present day border between Greece and Macedonia is the military cemetery of Doiran, above which is the Memorial to the Missing. Situated on top of a hill, this monument consists of four plinths that flank a column topped with two stone lions. One lion is depicted with a snarling expression and looks out over towards the hills where the Bulgarian troops were based, while the second lion has a mournful expression and faces the hills and ravines where the British and French troops fought and died. Engraved into one of the plinths is Montague’s name. He is one of only two men of the Royal Flying Corps to be remembered here.

Montague’s name on the Memorial to the Missing

The following day we climbed up a steep hill to the top of a ridge known as the Devil’s Eye where heavy fighting took place. Our guide, and Imperial War Museum curator, Alan Wakefield, shed light on the various battles and conveyed something of the experiences of those who took part. The conditions were unbelievably harsh with extreme heat and malaria to contend with in the summer and freezing winds, frostbite and snow to endure in the winters. The hilly terrain also made moving men and equipment and building defences a constant struggle. I began to gain something of an understanding of the conditions Montague must have faced.

On 7 May we visited the site where his plane was shot down. Careful research by members of the Salonika Campaign Society and local guides has identified the likely place from photographs taken at the time. After his plane came down, Bulgarian troops visited the site and photographs of Montague’s body lying on a stretcher were taken in order that he might be subsequently identified and given a marked grave. At the site, Alan Wakefield gave a talk about Montague’s role in the war. Afterwards, I talked about Montague’s anthropological work in New Caledonia and the collection of artefacts and documents that survive today in Cambridge and that featured in the exhibition Magic & Memory: Paul Montague in New Caledonia which was on display at MAA in 2014. Afterward we placed a memorial cross at the foot of a tree near to where his plane came down.

Talking about Montague’s work in New Caledonia

 The visit was a memorable one and one that has inspired me in my research and writing up of Montague’s work and life. It also reinforced the scale of the loss in World War One, of which so much as been written in the last year or so. More than just the loss of life, however, what this trip summed up for me was the loss of potential. With Montague’s collection living on, the loss of what he might have gone on to achieve is tangible.

Remembering

Julie Adams