WHY KING CONSTANTINE IS NEUTRAL
ATHENS, November, 1915.
We are not allowed to tell what the situation is here. But, in spite of
the censor, I am going to tell what the situation is. It is involved.
That is not because no one will explain it. In Greece at present,
explaining the situation is the national pastime. Since arriving
yesterday I have had the situation explained to me by members of the
Cabinet, guides to the Acropolis, generals in the army, Teofani, the
cigarette king, three ministers plenipotentiary, the man from St. Louis
who is over here to sell aeroplanes, the man from Cook's, and "extra
people," like soldiers in cafes, brigands in petticoats, and peasants in
peaked shoes with tassels. They asked me not to print their names, which
was just as well, as I cannot spell them. They each explained the
situation differently, but all agree it is involved.
To understand it, you must go back to Helen of Troy, take a running jump
from the Greek war for independence and Lord Byron to Mr. Gladstone and
the Bulgarian atrocities, note the influence of the German Emperor at
Corfu, appreciate the intricacies of Russian diplomacy in Belgrade, the
rise of Enver Pasha and the Young Turks, what Constantine said to
Venizelos about giving up Kavalla, and the cablegram Prince Danilo, of
"Merry Widow" fame, sent to his cousin of Italy. By following these
events, the situation is as easy to grasp as an eel that has swallowed
the hook and cannot digest it.
For instance, Mr. Poneropolous, the well-known contractor who sells
shoes to the army, informs me the Greeks as one man want war. They are
even prepared to fight for it. On the other hand, Axon Skiadas, the
popular barber of the Hotel Grande Bretagne, who has just been called to
the colors, assures me no patriot would again plunge this country into
conflict.
The diplomats also disagree, especially as to which of them is
responsible for the failure of Greece to join the Allies. The one who is
to blame for that never is the one who is talking to you. The one who is
talking is always the one who, had they followed his advice, could have
saved the "situation." They did not, and now it is involved, not to say
addled. The military attache of Great Britain volunteered to set the
situation before me in a few words. After explaining for two hours, he
asked me to promise not to repeat what he had said. I promised. Another
diplomat, who was projected into the service by William Jennings Bryan,
said if he told all he knew about the situation "the world would burst."
Those are his exact words. It would have been an event of undoubted news
value, and as a news-gatherer I should have coaxed his secret from him,
but it seemed as though the world is in trouble enough as it is, and if
it must burst I want it to burst when I am nearer home. So I switched
him off to the St. Louis convention, where he was probably more useful
than he will ever be in the Balkans.
While every one is guessing, the writer ventures to make a guess. It is
that Greece will remain neutral, or will join the Allies. Without
starving to death she cannot join the Germans. Greece is non-supporting.
What she eats comes in the shape of wheat from outside her borders, from
the grain-fields of Russia, Egypt, Bulgaria, France, and America. When
Denys Cochin, the French minister to Athens, had his interview with the
King, the latter became angry and said, "We can get along without
France's money," and Cochin said: "That is true, but you cannot get
along without France's wheat."
The Allies are not going to bombard Greek ports or shell the Acropolis.
They will not even blockade the ports. But their fleets--French,
Italian, English--will stop all ships taking foodstuffs to Greece. They
have just released seven grain ships from America, that were held up at
Malta, and ships carrying food to Greece have been stopped at points as
far away as Gibraltar. As related in the last chapter, the Greek steamer
on which we sailed from Naples was held up at Messina for twenty-four
hours until her cargo was overhauled. As we had nothing in the hold more
health-sustaining than hides and barbed-wire, we were allowed to
proceed.
Whatever course Greece follows, her dependence upon others for food
explains her act. To-day (November 29) there is not enough wheat in the
country to feed the people for, some say three--the most optimistic,
ten--days. Should she decide to join Germany she would starve. It would
be deliberate suicide. The French and Italian fleets are at Malta, less
than a day distant; the English fleet is off the Gallipoli peninsula.
Fifteen hours' steaming could bring it to Salonika. Greece is especially
vulnerable from the sea. She is all islands, coast towns, and seaports.
The German navy could not help her. It will not leave the Kiel Canal.
The Austrian navy cannot leave the Adriatic. Should Greece decide
against the Allies, their combined war-ships would pick up her islands
and blockade her ports. In a week she would be starving. The railroad
from Bulgaria to Salonika, over which in peace times comes much wheat
from Roumania, would be closed to her. Even if the Germans and
Bulgarians succeeded in winning it to the coast, they could get no food
for Greece farther than that. They have no war-ships, and the Gulf of
Salonika is full of those of the Allies.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Underwood and Underwood._
King Constantine of Greece and commander-in-chief of her
armies.
In two years he led his people to victory in two wars. If now they
desire peace and in this big war the right to remain neutral, he thinks
they have earned that right.]
The position of King Constantine is very difficult. He is supposed to
be strongly pro-German, and the reason for his sympathy that is given
here is the same as is accepted in America. Every act of his is
supposed to be inspired by family influences, when, as he has stated
publicly through his friend Walter Harris of the _London Times_, he is
pro-English, and has been actuated solely by what he thought was best
for his own people. Indeed, there are many who believe if the terms upon
which Greece might join the Allies had been left to the King instead of
to Venizelos, Greece now would be with the Entente.
Or, if Greece remained neutral, no one could better judge whether
neutrality was or was not best for her than Constantine. In the three
years before the World War, he had led his countrymen through two wars,
and if both, as King and commander of her armies, he thought they needed
rest and peace, he was entitled to that opinion. Instead, he was
misrepresented and abused. His motives were assailed; he was accused
of being dominated by his Imperial brother-in-law. At no time since
the present war began has he been given what we would call a "square
deal." The writer has followed the career of Constantine since the
Greek-Turkish war of 1897, when they "drank from the same canteen," and
as Kings go, or until they all do go, respects him as a good King. To
his people he is generous, kind, and considerate; as a general he has
added to the territory of Greece many miles and seaports; he is fond of
his home and family, and in his reign there has been no scandal, no
Knights of the Round Table, such as disgraced the German court, no
Tripoli massacre, no Congo atrocities, no Winter Garden or La Scala
favorites. Venizelos may or may not be as unselfish a patriot. But
justly or not, it is difficult to disassociate what Venizelos wants for
Greece with what he wants for Venizelos. The King is removed from any
such suspicion. He is already a King, and except in continuing to be a
good King, he can go no higher.
How Venizelos came so prominently into the game is not without
interest. As long ago as when the two German cruisers escaped from
Messina and were sold to Turkey, the diplomatic representatives of the
Allies in the Balkans were instructed to see that Turkey and Germany did
not get together, and that, as a balance of power in case of such a
union, the Balkan States were kept in line. Instead of themselves
attending to this, the diplomats placed the delicate job in the hands
of one man. At the framing of the Treaty of London, of all the
representatives from the Balkans, the one who most deeply impressed the
other powers was M. Venizelos. And the task of keeping the Balkans
neutral or with the Allies was left to him.
He has a dream of a Balkan "band," a union of all the Balkan
principalities. It obsesses him. And to bring that dream true he was
willing to make concessions which King Constantine, who considered only
what was good for Greece, and was not concerned with a Balkan alliance,
thought most unwise. Venizelos also was working for the good of Greece,
but he was convinced it could come to her only through the union. He was
willing to give Kavalla to Bulgaria in exchange for Asia Minor, from the
Dardanelles to Smyrna. But the King would not consent. As a buffer
against Turkey, he considered Kavalla of the greatest strategic value,
and he had the natural pride of a soldier in holding on to land he
himself had added to his country. But in his opposition to Venizelos in
this particular, credit was not given him for acting in the interests of
Greece, but of playing into the hands of Germany.
Another step he refused to take, which refusal the Allies attributed to
his pro-German leanings, was to attack the Dardanelles. In the wars of
1912-13 the King showed he was an able general. With his staff he had
carefully considered an attack upon the Dardanelles. He submitted this
plan to the Allies, and was willing to aid them if they brought to the
assault 400,000 men. They claim he failed them. He did fail them, but
not until after they had failed him by bringing thousands of men instead
of the tens of thousands he knew were needed.
The Dardanelles expedition was not required to prove the courage of the
French and British. Beyond furnishing fresh evidence of that, it has
been a failure. And in refusing to sacrifice the lives of his subjects
the military judgment of Constantine has been vindicated. He was willing
to attack Turkey through Kavalla and Thrace, because by that route he
presented an armed front to Bulgaria. But, as he pointed out, if he sent
his army to the Dardanelles, he left Kavalla at the mercy of his enemy.
In his mistrust of Bulgaria he has certainly been justified.
Greece is not at war, but in outward appearance she is as firmly on a
war footing as is France or Italy. A man out of uniform is conspicuous,
and all day regiments pass through the streets carrying the campaign kit
and followed by the medical corps, the mountain batteries, and the
transport wagons. In the streets the crowds are cheering Denys Cochin,
the special ambassador from France. He makes speeches to them from the
balcony of our hotel, and the mob wave flags and shout "Zito! Zito!"
In a play Colonel Savage produced, I once wrote the same scene and
placed it in the same hotel in Athens. In Athens the local color was
superior to ours, but George Marion stage-managed the mob better than
did the Athens police.
Athens is in a perplexed state of mind. She does not know if she wants
to go to war or wants peace. She does not know if she should go to war,
on which side she wants to fight. People tell you frankly that their
heart-beats are with France, but that they are afraid of Germany.
"If Germany wins," they asked, "what will become of us? The Germans
already are in Monastir, twenty miles from our border. They have driven
the Serbians, the French, and the British out of Serbia, and they will
make our King a German vassal."
"Then, why don't you go out and fight for your King?" I asked.
"He won't let us," they said.
When the army of a country is mobilized, it is hard to understand that
that country is neutral. You expect to see evidences of her partisanship
for one cause or the other. But in Athens, from a shop-window point of
view, both the Allies and the Germans are equally supported. There are
just as many pictures of the German generals as of Joffre, as many
post-cards of the German Emperor as of King George and King Albert.
After Paris, it is a shock to see German books, portraits of German
statesmen, composers, and musicians. In one shop-window conspicuously
featured, evidently with intent, is an engraving showing Napoleon III
surrendering to Bismarck. In the principal bookstore, books in German
on German victories, and English and French pamphlets on German
atrocities stand shoulder to shoulder. The choice is with you.
Meanwhile, on every hand are the signs of a nation on the brink of war;
of armies of men withdrawn from trades, professions, homes; of men
marching and drilling in squads, companies, brigades. At times the
columns are so long that in passing the windows of the hotel they take
an hour. All these fighting men must be fed, clothed, paid, and while
they are waiting to fight, whether they are goatherds or piano-tuners or
shopkeepers, their business is going to the devil.