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No. 14. YALE UNIVF:<:-IT>
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THE
ANGLO-HELLENIC LEAGUE

THE NEW GREECE
RONALD M.' BURROWS
Twice before in history there has been a New Greece. In the
centuries that followed the conquest of the Greek world by
Rome, it looked as if, politically and morally, the race were
dead. The poets could write of the supremacy of Greek
culture, but the Hellenised Romans of Horace's and Virgil's
days saw that the Greeks, who were their contemporaries,
lacked the qualities that make for government — strength of
purpose, grit, and staying power. When the New Greece
came, hardly two centuries after Horace wrote, it was character
that came first. There was a pressure of barbarians upon the
eastern frontiers of the Roman Empire, and it was the Hel
lenised East that stood in the way of invasion. The responsi
bilities of the situation, the fact that once again, as at Marathon
and Salamis, they were the acknowledged bulwark of civilisa
tion against barbarism, helped the Greeks to realise their new
political importance. Plutarch's book of " Parallel Lives " is
the political tract that ushered in the new era. On the one
side he justifies the character, the political capacity, of the
ancient Greeks, forgotten in the course of the centuries. He
sets the two races, Greek and Roman, man for man, one over
against the other, and shows that Greeks too could fight and
govern. On the other side, he makes his countrymen feel that
there was glory to be won in adapting themselves to new con
ditions and taking their share in the government of the cosmo
politan empire. Before a century was out, Greek officers were
commanding Roman troops in a border war, and a Greek wa,s
,.j .,, (I)

/•4

governor of a province. It was the deep-seated public spirit of
the race that made possible the long history of the Byzantine
Empire, Roman in organisation, Christian in religion, Greek in
language. Yet, though the East got its Dark Ages centuries later than
the West, they came at last. The eleventh Constantine fell in
the breach by the Cannon Gate, and for nearly four hundred
years the Greek race resigned itself once more to commerce
and religion, and the handing on from generation to generation
of its indomitable hopes. The story of the second revival of
Greece is familiar to Englishmen, because of the impression it
made on our own poets ; and we need not dwell on it. For
both Byron and Shelley, Greece stood for political as well as
for intellectual freedom. Throughout the struggle for liberty,
which began in 1790, and went on intermittently during Byron's
life, contemporary Greece came once more on the scene, as it
did in Roman days, to interpret its ancestry. How far can it
be said that once again, since Navarino was won and indepen
dence gained in 1827, there have been dark ages? Certainly
only in a limited and sublimated sense. Material progress has
been great ever since those days. No town in Europe has
more steadily advanced in riches, in fine buildings, in the
general amenities of life, than Athens. To those who revisit it
at intervals of a few years, each visit seems to mark an epoch.
The contrast between Athens and towns still under Ottoman
domination has been growing ever more marked. Nor is the
contrast a material one alone. Smyrna enjoys every advantage
of commerce and position that belongs to Athens ; its population
is largely Greek. Yet, because that population is not free to
work out its own salvation, to pass from Smyrna to Athens has
been, any time these fifty years, to leave the Middle Ages for
the modern world. Greece, as a national entity, has through
out been a refining and civilising force.
Still, as in the days of Horace, culture is not everything.
The Greek had the defects of his qualities, and the most serious
of them all was his love of talk, and, as young archaeologists
dubbed it, his cult of the black coat. The ideal of the leisured
intellectual was more general than in other nations, and was
made the easier of fulfilment by a natural frugality and a
willingness to do without material comforts. The ambitious
young man's one object was to give up agriculture or industrial
work as soon as he could and settle in a town, preferably
Athens, to take up law or politics. The traditions of the past
were in the blood, and no tradition was stronger than the love
of politics for its own sake. There was a danger of his
becoming the " sort of political man" which Kipling makes his
typical ancient Greek in his " Finest Story of the World "; the
( 2 )

quintessence of what a Spartan felt and Aristophanes said,
about the rank-and-file Athenian of the Enlightenment.
It would no doubt be easy to exaggerate this weakness. The
revolutionaries of the Military League of 1909, in their efforts
to introduce a more virile spirit into national life, naturally
made sweeping charges, and, to press home their points, painted
the evil in vivid colours. There were among leading Greek
politicians many men whose patriotism was as pure as is to be
found in any other country. None the less, the material
strength and prosperity of the people was not broad-based
enough for all this superstructure of political excitement. The
building was top-heavy. The danger would not have been so
serious had it not been connected with the problem of " un
redeemed " Greece across the borders. The population of the
Kingdom of Greece was only 2,500,000, while at least twice as
many Greeks lived in different parts of Turkey. There were
two effects of this strange survival from the days of the Byzan
tine Empire. It was easy for enterprising and adventurous
Greeks to leave the Kingdom, and seek their fortunes as mer
chants elsewhere among congenial fellow-countrymen. All
over the Levant there were Greek colonies which brought to
the Kingdom of Greece no corresponding political advantages,
but were rather a drain on national efficiency. If, however, the
Greek communities in Turkey had in the main been colonies of
prosperous merchants — as, in fact, they were in Constantinople
and Smyrna, and in other parts of the world, such as London
and Paris — the matter would have been a comparatively simple
one. But the vast mass of the " unredeemed " were humble
people, peasants, or small traders. There was scarcely a
family in Greece that had not friends or kinsmen suffering from
Turkish oppression in Crete, Epirus, or Macedonia. If we had
been a small, poor nation, and more Uitlanders of English blood
had been living in the Transvaal than there were Englishmen
in England, and had the government of the Boers been as bad
as that of Turkey, we should have had the same problem to
face fifteen years ago that Greece has had to face ever since it
was a kingdom. It was not financial greed or love of conquest,
but a passionate sympathy for the oppressed of its own race
that was the danger and difficulty, as now, under happier
auguries, it has proved the inspiration of Greek statesmanship.
But our South African analogy needs further qualification.
It would only hold if the Transvaal had been from time
immemorial the home of our race, and we had been dispos
sessed of it. Ever since the Turk took Constantinople there
has been in the mind of every Greek a hope, so dominant that
it was known as 17 tSea, the idea, that one day he would win
back his inheritance. Greek boys and girls, throughout those
(3)

four hundred years and more, have sung the old song with full
intention : TT^pav Trjv TToXi, trripave, Trrjpav ri] J^aXovUi]. *
Our Lady and the images of the Saints shed tears, but the
poet comforts them ;
2<i7raae, xipa SiaTroiva, firjv KXaiyyc, jifl SaxpiZys '
IlaXe n't xpcfVovQ, fi't xaipovQ, TraXt Suca. /lag elvai.1[
It was this enthusiasm, unsupported by efficiency or organi
sation, that led to the disastrous war with Turkey in 1897. It
was entered into lightly and without preparation, with no one
at the head of the Government or the army who had the
courage to tell, or indeed to face, the truth ; and it led to what
looked likely to be the permanent humiliation of Greece before
Turkey. The shame of those twelve years burnt deep into the Greek
soul. Few Englishmen were aware that the weaknesses of the
Greek nation had all along been felt as keenly in Greece itself
as they were by strangers, and that a growing body of public
opinion in the educated classes was struggling against them.
Varatassis, who fell in the war of 1897 commanding the
Foreign Legion, and became the hero of H. N. Brailsford's
story, " The Broom of the War God," had plenty of friends
left to succeed him. Indeed, Brailsford's disillusionment as to
the people for whom (as surely no Greek should forget) he
went out when not much more than a boy, and fought and got
his wounds, was largely due to a lack of political insight as to
the death of Varatdssis. To Brailsford it seemed a symbol of
the end of everything, the break-up of all his hopes and ideals
for Hellas. In reality it was the beginning of everything, the
birthday of the new Greek spirit.
Though there is this much excuse for Brailsford's later
depreciation of Greece, that he never visited the kingdom after
1909, it is surprising that he failed to see the way things were
tending in Crete and Macedonia, where he had good oppor
tunities for forming a judgment. The virility and sturdiness
of the Cretan Greeks he did realise ; but he saw it as a thing
apart, as something which had no bearing on Greek character
as a whole, but only served as an ironic contrast. The Mace
donian situation he failed to understand ; and his honest but
mistaken book, " Macedonia," published in 1906, did more than
anything else to poison English Liberal opinion against Greece.
* " They have taken the city, they have taken it, they have taken
Salonica." t " Be of good cheer. Lady, cease from tears and weeping,
After a season, after years, it will be our own again "
(4)

What he saw was that, when he visited Macedonia, the Bul
garians were largely in possession, especially in the country
districts, and that the Greeks were making desperate efforts to
reassert themselves. He saw that the feeling between the two
races was bitter, and that the Turks, anxious to preserve the
balance of power, were at the moment rather inclined to favour
the Greeks. What he did not allow for was that this was but
a phase in a secular struggle, in which the balance of senti
ment — and of cruelty — swayed now this way, now that. The
permanent factors in the situation were a sincere belief on the
part of both Christian races that the country was rightly theirs,
a floating mass of peasants not decidedly identified with either
of them, and an alien Government strong enough to prevent
open war, but too weak to prevent what was far more corrupt
ing and destructive, brigandage and blood-feud. It was un
reasonable to expect the Greeks to acquiesce in the success of
the Bulgarian propaganda of the eighties and nineties. Their
own claim to Macedonia was based on thousands of years of
tradition and possession, and they knew that the recent success
of the rival race was due to a short-sighted piece of ecclesiasti
cal bigotry, and some supineness on their own part.
Sir Valentine Chirol has lately pointed out* that, when he
collected statistics thirty years ago in a place that is now so
confidently claimed as Bulgarian as the town of Monastir, " the
Bulgarians themselves did not pretend even to one-third of the
population — an excessive claim anyhow." That even to-day
there is still a large floating population is illustrated by some
incidental remarks in the depositions of Macedo-Bulgars given
in the official Bulgarian version of the "Atrocities"! of the
second war. Thus we hear (p. 119) that the father of a Bul
garian soldier with the good Slav name of Spassof was a
" bulgare grecisant." Another " bulgare grecisant " called
Popoff (p. 118) is credited with some of the worst acts attri
buted to the Greek side ; and so also are two Vlaques, one of
whom "ne savait pas du tout le gree et parlait bulgare"
(p. 121). It was difficult to be sure what the sympathies of a
given village would be. A company of the 70th Regiment
lost its way and got trapped (p. 128). " Nous croyons que les
paysans de ce village fussent des bulgares. Nous nous sommes
tromp6s. C'etaient des gr^cisants."
However true it may be that, at moments, the propaganda of
both races resolved itself into crude intimidation, they are not
to be judged by such by-products. The competition in school
building, with its effort to attract to one culture or the other
* Times, August 14, IQIS.
t " Atrocites Grecques en Macedoine." Sophia, 1913.
(5 )

the young generation of the unattached and miserable peas
antry, was in itself both natural and wholesome. In 1900 the
Bulgarians had 785 schools in Macedonia, with 1,250 teachers
and 39,892 pupils ; the Greeks (the figures are taken for 1901)
927 schools, with 1,397 teachers, and 57,607 pupds.* No
doubt all these children were not originally Greeks. But it
was an immense credit to the Greeks that they tried to make
them so. That Greek pretensions, based on this educational
campaign, only led to still keener and bitterer racial feeling,
was a distressing but inevitable result of the general conditions
of Ottoman rule. The policy of playing off one race against
another was not an invention of Abdul Hamid's ; but no one
did it with greater skill. How many of the violent deeds that
were done by either Greek or Bulgar bands during those years
were due to private and kindly information that a similar
atrocity had been just done by the other side in the next
valley !
We can form a sounder judgment of the Greek propaganda
in Macedonia from one insignificant but widely circulated
document of the time than from all the depreciative comments
in Brailsford's book. It is an Easter card, with " Christ is
risen " printed across it, and is a " memento from Macedonia."
Macedonia lies enclosed in the red crescent of Ottoman rule,
and in it is a heart, with the red blood of the " Greek spirit "
flowing from it. The shears of Panslavism are cutting it, and
the Austrian snake is making through it to Salonica, and the
arrows of Bulgarian propaganda and Servian propaganda and
Roumanian propaganda are piercing it. And in the centre of
the heart is a cross, and the words " Mother Church, help
me !" To the average Greek this was not insincere or senti
mental ; it was as true an expression of national emotion as
that which inspired Holland against Spain, or Italy against
Austria, or the Boers against ourselves.
Even if the by-products of this revolutionary movement had
been worse than they were, the keen observer might have seen
that the action and danger which it involved was likely to brace
the character. For men like Paul Melas, the Greek officer
who died in it in 1904, the movement stood for a great ideal
and high action. " There were words, words all round him " ;
"oA.a dve Xi^ei<s," says the author of " The Blood of Martyrs
and Heroes," " koI 6 HavXo'S djroe^ao-tcre va S(a(rrj OTt tT)(€. Kal £t)(e
rbv kavTo tov." " And Paul decided to give what he had. And
he had himself." The need for sincerity and endurance, the
futility of mere rhetoric, is the moral of the whole of that
remarkable book, in which, under his pen-name of Idas, Ion
* J. D. Bourchier's figures in " Encyclopaedia Britannica/' Ed. XI.
( 6 )

Dragoumis tells the story of his friend ; " av rpk^ovixt va. a-iicrovixe
Trj MaKiSovCa, ifieh Oa a-oidovixi." " If we go to save Macedonia,
It is we who shall be saved." Idas's book is dedicated "To
the Young " ; and throughout it there are visions of a " New
Greece," hardy and brave, the child of war and danger. Such
a New Greece was already growing ; and Idas expressed what
was in thousands of minds. To a progressive of Western
Europe, national regeneration, couched in terms of war and
conquest, is naturally suspect ; it brings to his mind the sinister
ideas of Militarism and Jingoism. When the Greek revival
found concrete expression, two years after Idas wrote, in the
formation of the Military League, and the army dictated terms
to the civil power, the true meaning of the movement was
obscured by this very prejudice. "The League's domestic
programme," said the Manchester Guardian (November i, 1909),
" is professional, and its foreign programme is Jingoism." In
point of fact, expenditure on armaments was but one item in
the programme of the Military League. It was a general
attack on corruption, sinecures, softness, weakness, in every
department of public life ; and it scourged all alike without
any trace of professional narrowness. It is difficult for the
progressive to realise that there is a stage in the history of
many peoples when regeneration is bound to express itself in
military terms. To make the perfect man or the perfect
nation, soul and body have to find their balance ; and softness
can only be cured by a cultivation of the sterner and what, if
in their turn exaggerated, might well be called the grosser
qualities. In the Greek movement there was nothing that can
be rightly called Militarism or Jingoism. There was no desire
to aggrandise, or to form, a military caste. There was no
attempt to exploit sentiment for commercial profit. The
paraphernalia of military pomp were just what men prayed to
be delivered from. National vain-glory was anathema. The
spirit of the " black coat " had gone under. Varatassis and
Melas were dominant.
It was no doubt fortunate that, before it went too far, the
movement was guided back into constitutional channels. This
was due to the consummate patience of King George, and to
the flexibility of mind of one of the older statesmen, Stephanos
Dragoumis. They bridged over the difficult months before
there came over from Crete the man who gathered in himself
all that Young Greece had longed and striven to be, Eleutherios
Venizelos. Even Venizelos could have done nothing if the
seeds of life had not already been there. His success is itself
a proof of the soundness of the race. But no national revival
ever found a more ideal leader. In appearance, Venizelos is
curiously like the bust of Pericles by Cresilas in the British
(7)

Museum. The first impression is one of benevolence and
moderation. There is humour about the mouth and m the eyes.
When he smiles— and here we have no warrant for the
Cresilas— he shows white and beautiful teeth. When you
have looked at him you are as much surprised as when you
look at Pericles, to think that you have had before you a stern,
determined man, a soldier as well as a statesman. It would be
interesting to learn whether Veniz61os knows his Thucydides.
His method of dealing with Athenians is amazingly like that
of his predecessor. Never has Venizelos spoken irphs rjSovriv.
Whether it was Thessalian peasants demanding the expropria
tion of landholders, or non-commissioned officers objecting to
severe things said of them by the French Military Mission,
or excited crowds incited by an insidious opposition to raise
the " No Popery" cry of Greece — that the sacred classical
tongue was in danger at the hands of the fxaXbapot, or the long
haired romanticists who wanted to write literature as the
common people talked and must therefore be traitors ; he said
the straight, unpleasant thing, even if it was on the eve of a
general election. And the more unpleasant things he said, the
more the nation worshipped him. Every party leader united
against him, every man prominent in the old regime except
Dragoumis. But, when once again he appealed to the country,
a manhood suffrage electorate gave him more than 140 seats in
the Boule out of i6o. No wonder that Greece could work and
fight as one man.
It is unnecessary to dwell on the satisfactory results of this
leadership, either before the campaign of the Allies against
Turkey began, or during that campaign itself. It was Venizelos
who, as Gueschoff, the Bulgarian Premier, himself stated,
initiated the Balkan League. Young Greece, in its very
determination to challenge Bulgaria's right to Macedonia, had
learnt to admire her vigour and strength of purpose ; and
it was the elder Greek statesmen alone who criticised the
alliance. Old racial hatreds seemed to sink in the glow of a
common enterprise. The Young -Turk revolution had un
consciously done much to help on this tendency. The finer
spirits in that movement rose superior to Abdul Hamid's
methods of playing off one race against the other. To the
rank and file also, occupied with their idea of the Ottomaniza-
tion of all the subject races, those methods seemed mis
taken, involving as they did the accentuation of the very
national differences which they were anxious to smooth away.
Above all, the parliamentary regime which was then inaugu
rated, imperfect though it was, suggested the advisability of
the Christian races combining on a common platform for
electioneering purposes. The fact that such an arrangement
(8)

was come to between Greeks and Bulgarians was significant
and, as we shall see later, the character of this arrangement
was scarcely less so.
The Balkan League was formed ; and in the war that
followed Greece played a part that surprised her former de
tractors. The French Military Mission, relying on a whole
hearted Government support, which, happily for Greece,
Turkey had never given to her advisers, did wonders for the
organisation and discipline of the army. General Eydoux
showed firmness in introducing changes, and tact in identify
ing himself with all that was characteristic in national feeling.
Officers and men responded to this good French soldiering,
and, when war came, the race as a whole responded. Not-
only did no one fail who was due to serve, but volunteers
came at their own expense from Greek colonies all over the
world, so that the total in the field, exclusive of irregulars,
amounted to 216,000. As many as 57,000 came from the
United States alone, and left a remarkable impression behind
them by their exodus. America had hitherto witnessed the
reverse process when other European wars began. The troops
marched well and fought well, and, though they had not as
heavy work to do as the Bulgarians had in Thrace, their
capture of the fortress of Janina was a considerable military
achievement, and reflected great credit on the Crown Prince
and his home-trained chief of the staff, General Dousmanis.
It is encouraging, for other nations than the Greek, that there
is no indication that the black-coats of the cities, once pos
sessed of their new spirit, were less brave, or bore hardships
less readily, than the peasants. Students and schoolmasters,
lawyers and merchants, formed a larger proportion of the
Greek army than they do of most armies ; but, instead of
lowering the general physical stamina, they supphed an
element of initiative and capacity to the isolated infantry unit
that is essential in modern war. Above all, the Greek fleet
did incalculable service to the allied cause by holding up
Turkish reinforcements. Travellers who were in Asia Minor
during the campaign agree that its resources were practically
untapped, and that there were masses of men there whom the
Greek command of the sea made it impossible to bring into
action. It has been remarked above that the Bulgarians had the
heaviest work to do in this campaign against Turkey. It was
a misfortune for Bulgaria. It is difficult not to believe you
are a fine fellow when everybody tells you so ; and the fact
that Bulgaria had had the hardest job to do was accepted by
the European Press as proving that she alone could have done
it. The division of the spoil was admittedly a difficult matter.
( 9 )

The fortune of war had placed Servia in military occupation
of Northern and Central Macedonia. If military occupation
alrne were to decide the matter, Bulgaria would obtain
little of Macedonia; and it was Macedonia more than any
thing else that Bulgaria had set her heart on. The district of
Monastir, in particular, had for years been the centre of Bul
garian propaganda. Greece, too, was in possession of Salonica ;
and Salonica was one of the richest prizes of the war. The
matter was further complicated by a treaty signed, very short
sightedly, by Servia, just before the war, in which she agreed
that Central Macedonia was to go to Bulgaria, while the
division of Northern Macedonia between them was to be sub-
. mitted to the arbitration of Russia. As against the binding
effect of this treaty, Servia pleaded that the issue of the war
had given all the unexpected advantages to the Bulgarians.
At the outset Bulgaria had never hoped to keep Adrianople.
On the other hand, the attitude of the Powers in refusing to
give Servia an outlet on the Adriatic had allowed her even less
than she expected to get when the hopes of the Allies as a
whole were far more modest. A document issued while the
controversy was in progress showed that, even on the Servian
and Greek proposal, Bulgaria would maintain her supremacy
in the Alliance. She would still have had 157,000 square
kilometres of territory to Servia's 85,000, as against 96,000
and 48,000 before the war. On Bulgaria's proposal, Servia
would in proportion have lost heavily, coming off with 75,000
to Bulgaria's 183,000.
A wise statesmanship would have found a way out of these
difficulties. All that was essential for Servia was that she
should have commercial access to the .iEgean, now that she
was denied it to the Adriatic. From this access she would
be hopelessly barred if she were shut in on her southern as
well as her eastern border by Bulgaria, and had no chance of
free competition and alternative routes. If Bulgaria had faced
this one vital point, and the fact that it probably entailed the
sacrifice of Monastir, she would have found that there was
plenty of territory left to bargain for. Servia did not want
war, and would with little doubt have given up her claim to
a large slice of Macedonia east of Uskub and Monastir. Bul
garia might perhaps have reconciled herself to the loss of
Monastir, if she had had the insight to realise that the pro
posals made by Greece involved the abandonment of claims
to territories as much bound up with the Greek "idea" as
Monastir was with her own. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks
were being offered to Bulgaria in Thrace, while she was also
to take over the flourishing Greek communities of Kavalla,
Drama, and Serres, and control of the rich tobacco industry.
( 10 )

It is important in this connection to recur to the election
arrangements made with a view to the Ottoman Padiament
by the Greek and Bulgarian communities a year before the
war began. These arrangements, as the Dnewnik, the Sofia
organ of the Daneff party, assured us at the time, were made
" on the basis of official statistics and after lengthy delibera
tions." For Thrace they allotted one seat to the Bulgarians,
and eight to the Greeks. In the vilayet of Uskub (Kossovo)
the Bulgarians were to have two seats, the Greeks none. It
was Servia, of course, and not Greece, that claimed this dis
trict after the war. For the vilayet of Monastir, part of
which after the war was in the Servian claim, the Bulgarians
were to have two seats, the Greek five. For the vilayet of
. Salonica, which on the Greek claim after the war was to be
fairly evenly divided, the Bulgarians were to have three seats,
the Greeks five. How can these figures, arrived at by mutual
compromise and for mutual benefit, be explained away ?
Making all possible allowances for superior Greek skill in
electioneering, or the superior influence and riches of the
Greek communities, we are left with an ample margin. It
remains that, according to the opinion of the Bulgarians of
Thrace and Macedonia, they were in a hopeless minority in
Thrace, while they were distinctly in a minority in that part of
Southern and Eastern Macedonia which had ex hypothesi to be
divided between them and the Greeks.
It was a real sacrifice that Venizelos was thus willing to
make for the sake of peace and the maintenance of the Balkan
League ; but it must not be imagined that he carried his point
without opposition. It was the crowning proof of his power
that he was able to control the indignation that his loyalty to
the League aroused. Early in March, 1913, a memorial was
sent to the Boule by the Greeks of Thrace and Eastern
Macedonia ; on the 14th it was submitted to the Chamber ;
and on the 15th two deputies raised the question of the
Government's policy. The whole force of the Opposition,
backed by an unusual body of public opinion outside,
clamoured against the Prime Minister. " Are such," said
Theotokis with bitter irony, " the declarations of the ' Liberator
of Hellas ' ?" Venizelos's reply, which was never reported in
the English Press, was a remarkable one, and is worth quoting
at some length :
" I am aware," he said, " that there are those who are trying to stir up
trouble among the Greek populations which without question will remain
outside the Greater Greece. I want these populations to know from the
lips of the responsible head of the Greek Government that those who urge
on them such an attitude are the true enemies of their country, the true
enemies of Hellenism. In other days— three years ago or more— it would
( II )

have been difficult perhaps for a Prime Minister to dare to make such
unpalatable revelations. But I, gentlemen, who have only been a few
years among you, have come to the conclusion that in three years a tre
mendous change has come over the soul of the Greek people. Everyone
does not see it ; but it is so great that it permits, nay, that it compels, the
responsible head of the Greek Government to tell the truth to the people.
It is natural that difficulties should have arisen as to the division of the
conquered territory. One knows how strong national exclusiveness is
Each of the nations that have shared in this struggle for freedom, impelled
by the national instinct, tries to obtain as large a share as possible. Each,
in good faith, claims to have contributed most to the common cause. But
the truth is different. AU have contributed to their utmost. Each of the
allied nations has concentrated all its resources, moral and material, to
win a result which never would otherwise have been won. I have a con
viction that the partition of the conquered territory will not be made by
the military authorities, who have a limited horizon and look at matters
from a merely military point of view, nor by the too fervid patriots of this
State or that, but by these States' responsible Governments. ... I hope
their patriotism will be so lofty that they will not shrink from such sacri
fices as will be inevitable if the partition is to ensure the continuance of
the Alliance, even if they are bound to be called traitors by the fervid
patriots of their own race."
There may have been statesmen in Bulgaria who were
capable of responding to this lofty conception of patriotism,
but, if so, they did not carry their people with them, while
Venizelos did. The direction of Bulgarian policy passed out
of the hands of Gueschoff, the moderate and reasonable
promoter of the original alliance, and was left more and more
to men like Daneff, who even in the early negotiations that
preceded the signing of the Treaty of London had astonished
the diplomatic world by his truculent Chauvinism. That
\'enizelos, on the other hand, maintained his conciliatory
attitude to the end, is clear not only from the response he
made to those friends of the League in England who strove
during May and June to avert hostilities, but from some
curious revelations which were made in the Boule at the end
of last November. A subordinate member of the Government,
M. Stratos, provoked by what he considered the Premier's
high-handed action in asking him to send in his resignation,
committed the grave indiscretion of charging him in the Press
with having sacrificed Greek interests to maintain the Bul
garian alliance, with having for this object postponed till
almost too late the conclusion of a separate agreement with
Servia, and with having been thrown into complete despair by
the repeated aggressions of the Bulgarians during the month
of May in the district of the Panghaeon. Venizelos, in another
great speech before the Boule of November 25, easily disposed
of the accusations that he was unprepared or taken at a loss.
But he did not deny that, up to the moment when hostilities
were definitely begun by Bulgaria, he had done all in his
( 12 )

power to keep the League together. To this end he offered
Bulgaria Serres, Drama, and Kavalla. The fact that the war
had had a favourable issue did not make him ashamed to
admit that he had dreaded it. War was, after all, prepare as
you might, largely a matter of chance. " My critics," he
said — and the remark shows the greatness of the man — " forget
the misfortunes of the State which for thirty years has held
the hegemony in the Balkan Peninsula."
There is now, of course, no doubt that Bulgaria did in fact
deliberately begin the second war. At the time, the copies of
the orders to advance, captured on the field by the Servian
army, and published in facsimile, were repudiated. Even so
late as August 30, three Bulgarian Professors, sure of hospitality
in the columns of the Nation, pleaded that " the scattered
distribution of the Bulgarian forces over a frontier of 600
miles is incompatible with the view that Bulgaria intended or
began the war. Facsimiles of orders to advance can be
shown on both sides.'' The exigencies of domestic politics
have long ago swept aside all such pleas. Gennadieff and the
Austrian party, the Dnewnik, the organ of the Russophils, the
Epoca, which represents General Savoff, above all Gueschoff's
Mir, in a number so indiscreet that it was suppressed by the
authorities, agree in only one item of the counter-accusations
which bandy about responsibility for blunders between
Ministers and Generals and King ; and that is the charge that
those orders to advance were genuine, and that Somebody,
with a very capital " S " indeed, issued them.* That Bulgarian
statesmanship was incredibly foolish does not make it any the
less true that it was also treacherous ; and the murder of the
Servian outposts is an act for which the country must long
feel shame.
It has been difficult for English opinion to accept these
bitter facts. When the second war began, the Nation (July 5)
refused to believe in Bulgarian defeats. The reports were
attributed to Greek and Servian " garrulousness " ; " and
neither of them has any reputation to lose for accuracy." It is
very hard to get rid of, this " Mirage Bulgare," the picture so
fondly and pathetically believed in of the wise, silent, practical
nation, slow but sure, methodical and massive ! How was it
possible to believe that it was they who had been immoderate
and vainglorious ?
A few words about "Atrocities." The second war was
bound to be a bitter one. The Bulgarians were maddened by
* See a summary in the Manchester Guardian, December i, 1913. The
Cambana of Sofia has further published documents implicatmg, among
others. General Ivanoff. In the light of them, his disclaimers m the
Nineteenth Century (December, 1913, p. I347) lose all value.
( 13 )

the check they received in what they imagined would be the
easiest of " walk-overs." The Greeks captured at Strumnitza
a heavy silk standard fringed in gold and embroidered with
the royal crown. The ladies of Sofia had worked on it the
the motto " Forward to Athens." That sort of thing only
happens when a nation is secure of victory. The Greeks, on
the other hand, had already been inflamed by the accounts
they received of the treatment of some of the Greek villages
occupied by the Bulgarians on the slopes of Mt. Panghaeon.
Pillage, murder, and rape were alleged to have taken place on
a large scale in this district during the month of May ; and
the phrases "the Bulgarian atrocities," " Attilaand his Huns,"
appeared in the Greek Press in June, two weeks before the
war broke out.* Names and dates are given for many of these
accusations ; and the Bulgarian military governor of Doiran is
quoted as saying to a Greek priest who asked him to restore a
school, " Not a Greek shall remain on Bulgarian territory."
Some of these accusations could very possibly not be sub
stantiated, if we had the complete evidence before us in a
court of law. For others, at least, that amount of justification
could probably be urged, that neighbours who had hated each
other for generations regarded each other as in a permanent
state of war. Race feeling had been growing tense for many
months. The whole countryside consisted of men who,
potentially if not actually, were franc-tireurs on one side or the
other, " comitadjis," or " andartes," as they are respectively
called. I have studied the Bulgarian counter-accusations, and
noted how completely they ignore these considerations. The
peasants whose depositions are laid before us pose as simple
harmless souls, surprised out of their peaceful avocations by
an inroad of outrageous Greeks.
Take, for instance, as a test case, the affair of Akandjali, near
Lake Doiran, on which the Bulgarians lay great stress. The
Greek Cavalry are alleged to have been guilty of pillage and
outrage there on the night of July 6. Eleven depositions, cover
ing eight pages of print (pp. 88-95), profess to give us full details
of what happened, and represent it as the result of wanton
cruelty exercised on an unoffending population. The writer
has taken pains to identify the body of cavalry in question,
and has in his possession a signed letter from Colonel Zym-
vrakdkis, its commander. It turns out that an unopposed
search for rifles was in process, and that 700 had already
been found and piled in waggons in the central square, when
firing began from a neighbouring house. Colonel Zymvra-
kakis himself and a sergeant were both wounded behind
* See the Messager d'Athenes, June 21, 1913, which also quotes an earlier
number of the ^ftro/oKs.
( 14)

the left knee, so seriously, that they were incapacitated for the
rest of the war. Captain Linaras also fell, struck by eleven
bullets in the hip and shoulder-blade, and was in danger of his
life for many days. Supposing that the squadron did, in fact,
get out of hand when they saw their officers shot at in this
treacherous way, would it be a serious criticism on the Greek
army ? Although, however, we may grant it as an a priori
probability that some revenge was taken, we can give no
credence to the depositions of the villagers. With all their
detail, they make not the slightest reference to the wounding of
the Greek officers. The nearest approach to it is a solitary
remark in one deposition that " au moment de la remise des
armes un fusil charge partit par megarde."
One thing is clear. If the Greek army did commit any
of the outrages that are charged against it by the Bulgarians,
they admit at least this defence, that they were acts of re
prisals, done by men who were convinced that their enemies
had already broken the laws of war. In the Bulgarian publi
cation already alluded to, this question of priority is denied,
and stress is laid on the fact that the incident at Akandjali
occurred so early as July 6, and therefore some days before the
admitted Bulgarian excesses at Demirhissar (July 8) and
Doxato (July 13). The account of Akandjali is, as we have
seen, discredited, but, in point of fact, the question of priority
does not depend on Akandjali, nor, indeed, on anything that
occurred in the first weeks of July. It is fixed by the logic of
events before the war. Greece had practically no Bulgarian
villages in their power till war was declared. With insignifi
cant exceptions, they were in the occupation of the Servian or
Bulgarian armies. Bulgaria, on the other hand, had had to
deal with hundreds of thousands of Greeks, from Thrace to
Eastern Macedonia ; and the reports that reached Greece had
given abundant reason to believe that the "comitadjis " had
been guilty of excesses. Such a conclusion does not imply
that we join with writers like Mr. Nevinson and Miss Durham,
who shake their heads over the whole business, and argue that
things are about as bad as they were in the old Turkish days.
Race hatred is no doubt a disconcerting phenomenon to find
in this twentieth century. It is a survival from centuries of
Turkish misrule, a kink, like the attitude of the Southern
States to the Negro, or the Spaniards' passion for bullfights.
But the discovery that it exists should not influence our
judgment of the character of a people, as we have got to
know it by our private intercourse with individuals, or by our
historical judgment of its national capacity. The difierence
between the Turks and the Christians of the Turkish Empire,
is not that the one people is capable of atrocities and the other
( 15 )

not. It is that the one has for hundreds of years proved itself
incapable of good government, and stands for stagnation and
moral and intellectual death; while Greece, Bulgaria, and
Servia, ever since they have won their freedom, have all alike
ranged themselves on the side of progress and civilisation. It
is history that justifies our optimism.
The appeasing of this race hatred is, indeed, the most press
ing work that the Balkan peoples have before them. A mani
festo just issued by the English Balkan Committee* brings
this out with true statesmanship. By no one will such a
movement be supported more warmly than by Venizelos, the
originator of the first Balkan League. In an interview with
the Adversul of Bucharest, in the month of December, he
expressed the desire of Greece to live at peace with Bulgaria^
and the conviction that the Balkan Confederation is even now
no chimera, but that it will one day be realised on a large scale
and include not only Bulgaria but Turkey.
That Greece will be a more important member of such a
confederation than if the second war had never been fought,
is a dramatic reward for her loyalty and moderation. Her
territory has risen from 64,000 to 120,000 square kilometres,
her population from 2,500,000 to 4,500,000. She will be able
to maintain a considerable fleet, resting on the sound founda
tions of a seafaring people and a vigorous and growing mer
cantile marine.t Her army will reach a war strength of some
450,000 men. The new provinces will also give her what she
has hitherto lacked, a large area of rich agricultural land.
Tobacco wih be only one of the products of Southern and
Central Macedonia, when they are developed by energy and
good government; but tobacco alone will be a great source
of revenue. The total weight of Macedonian tobacco declared
by the producers to the Turkish R^gie for 1911-1912 was
24,000,000 kilos, or 52,000,000 lbs.; and the actual crop is certain
to have been much greater. More than half of this tobacco is
grown in the new Greek territory, and will be exported from
Kavalla and Salonica. The Greek revenue before the war was
only between five and six millions; in the course of a few
years it may well be doubled. Nor need we fear as to the
future of the New Greece. As the municipal elections only
this last February have shown, Venizelos commands, as fully
as ever, the confidence of the nation. He is only forty-nine,
not long past the period of young and vigorous manhood, when
he carried his rifle as a rebel on the hills of Crete. King
Constantine, whose name, with its echo of Byzantium, is as
* February 12, 1914.
t A. Andreades, Journal des Economistes (Paris), September-October,
( 16 )

romantically attractive as his person and his temperament
is only forty-five. And the nation is sound. The blood and
brains of Greeks in their settlements all over the world— in
England, France, America, even in the little colony in
Australia, unheard of before the war — are at its service. And
in the New Greece the motto is " Deeds, not words," " wpd^et^
Kal o^t \6yia."
Yet words are not unimportant. Literature can never be
unimportant for a Greek. Taste, style, and feeling for poetry
are in the blood of the race ; and it is only the war between
the spoken and the written word that has hampered self-expres
sion. It is impossible in an article like the present to attempt
to estimate the value of the young literary movement. One
can only say that it is strangely little known in England.
Poems hke " The Unruffled Life " of Kosti Palamas, prose
writings such as the " Samothrake " of Ion Dragoumis, which
brings home to us the charm and the burden of the Greek
islands under Turkish rule, deserve a sympathetic interpreter.
It is strange that there should be no representative of Modern
Greek language and literature in the University of London.
The funds necessary for a Readership are not excessive, and
we might expect the most brilliant young scholars in Greece
to be candidates. There could be no better way for the Greek
colony in London to impress on the Enghsh world of letters
the significance of the Renaissance of Greece.
It will, perhaps, serve as a warranty that even in the New
Greece words follow deeds, though they no longer overwhelm
them, if this article closes with a simple impromptu lament
composed by peasants, and sung in a little village on the
promontory of Teenarum, a few days before Christmas, 1912.*
It is a fivpoXoyi, a keening in honour of the dead, like those
of our own Irish peasants in Synge's " Riders to the Sea."
The people are Black Mainiates, claiming descent from Sparta,
who still, like the Scottish Highlanders, retain the clan feeling
towards their old chieftains, the Mavromichali or House of
Black Michael. The son of the house, Dimitri Livanas, had
been killed in Epirus ; and the lament over him is begun
by Kotivarina, a woman from the neighbouring village of
K6kkala, who had just lost her own son at Sarantaporon in
South Macedonia. She speaks to the father of Livanas, and
to his grandmother, the old Stavrianoii Mourkakaina.
" Oh ! my good Stavrianou, Xaipdfitvr] fiov 'Eravpiavov,
That you may have joy of all you love, ttov va xapyg 8 n dya-n-^s,
And you to my right, and my left, bi' dni Sit'd ti' d-n-b jEp|6ia,
Let me too make my lament. /love /cai /iBva «^fc /lov.
* Written down by G. D. Manolakos, schoolmaster of Kotron, and pub
lished by Professor N. G. Politis, in Aaoypa(pin, vol. iv., Athens, June, 1913.
( 17)

Three full years have passed
Since our good Venizelos,
Who is a great minister —
May he live, may his life be long ! —
Knew the secret.
And this year he told it.
Four kingdoms are allied,
To fight the Turk.
They have utterly conquered
And have crushed him.
Come near me, Livanas !
You who went there to the spot.
Tell me what news you won.
Where are our sons ?
Yesterday I was in my house,
And was dressing my children.
For it was holiday and feast,
And Saint Spyridon's day,
When away there ofi' Taenaron
I saw our ships pass.
The lads shouted out.
That we should go to their homes,
And say farewell for them.
For they go to Janina,
They go to fight.
And conquer the Turk,
And if they do not conquer him,
They will never come back.
Come near me, Livanas !
Is it not a shame
And a great reproach,
To weep for our children ?
For Spartan women
Do not weep for their sons.
When they go and are slain,
For the glory of their country.
The good Venizelos,
Who is our first minister.
Sent a telegram
To the lady Mavromichali.
Her son had been killed,
Who was an oflScer.
And she sent him an answer,
' He has done his duty. '
That is our nature.
As tradition tells us,
Our folk have come from Sparta.
Surely we have not become Vlachs,
And never known it ?
Come near me, Livanas !
You know it well.
With what love I nursed him,
And trained him to be a doctor,
To make me a good old age.
And now they have slain him for me.
Away in Sarantaporon.
Happy is his death,
For it has freed a people. ( i8 )

Tpia ;)['povaK'(a Kketdojrd
6 BeviZ^eXog 6 kuXoq,
(oTTOV etvai jikyai; vTrovpyoQf
uTTov I'd ^y, vd 'xV Z^V)
eyvuipi^^ rh fivtrriKd
Kal ipkrov rb ^avepititTB.
Tkffffspa Kpdrr} Gv<pttiva
TOV TovpKO TToXefxfjaaffi'
8\a Tove vncquaut
Kal t6v KararpoTTiibtTaau
"EAct Kovrd fiov, AijSavd,
TTOV StaTjKeg bk€1 Kovrd.
Via Trkg fiov ri Kd^atT/jffet; ;
TTOV elvai rd iraiSia fiag ;
Xreg f}fiovva 'g t6 (nriTt fjov,
K tvTVva rd Tratdia fiov,
ri Tave tjKoXr] Kal yiopri],
{^rav T dyiov ^TrvpiSd^va)
Kl ajro^w dirb rh Talvapo
TTBpvovtjav rd Kapd(3ia fiag.
^uivd^av rd Tratdia fxag
vd TTOvfie x'^fpertcr^uara
Bfielg eig rd GinrdKia rovg^
ri KBXva irav ^g rd Fiavvaiva,
Trdat vd TroXeixrjffovtri,
rbv TovpKO vd viKrjtTovfft,
KL a dkv rovB viKTjtTOVtn,
iriaov vd prj yvpifjovai.
'EXa Kovrd ftov, AifSavd.
Akv ro 9(jjpovfif yid kuko
Kai yid fiaydXjj 7rpoo"/3o\?)
vd KXalfie rd Tratdia fiag ;
Kat TrCJg ; ot ^Traprtdriaffaig
Sev KXdtve rd Tratdia rovg,
orav TTOV Kal (XKortttvovvrat
ytd rrjg Trarpidag ro Ka\6.
'O Bevt^eXoc ^ KaXbg
(oTTov elvat Kal Trp(i)9v7rovpy6g)
SKave rj]Xeypd<pr]fj.a
eig rt) MavpofxixdXatva.
ffK0T0)9i] ro TraidaKi rrjg,
TTOV YjTa Kl d^iiofiartKog'
k' EKeivT] rov aTravrriae'
ri tKr/fie rb KadiJKO rou.
Mete txopie rb (pvfytKO,
dir uKort kC dypotKrjrd,
dirb rij ^Trdprti ripQaai.
Md fiijTTwg efiXaxe-\pafj,e
Kal dkv rb KaraXd(3afj.e ;
"EXa Kovrd fxov, Ai(3avd.
'Effij rb yviopiteg KaXd,
on TU xa^^rtvaoTJ/o-a,
Kat ro kairovdacra yiarpo,
ytd rd KoXd yapdfiaTa,
KL aTTsi fxk rb (TKoroirram,
tKel 'g rb ^apavrdiropo.
'XaXdXi TOV 6 Bdvarog,
yiarl Xevrspijjae Xa6 !

Is it the first time
That there are deaths in Maina ?
Surely they were slain
In Crete, when they went
There to the Klepht war,
When they took them from among us,
The leaders of the Bands ?
How we longed for it !
That a Mainiate should be minister,
That he might do us honour.
That we might have consideration
All of us in our homes.
The Cretan is good too.
He is a great man.
May they have a thousand blessings.
All who voted for him.
And brought him here,
To make Hellas great.
Listen ! Let me say to you
What the priest told me.
That our Venizelos
Has been called to go
To hold a council
In the capital of England.
Oh ! Greek and Christian women,
At night before your lamp.
And where your ikon stands,
Summon your children
To make their prayer
To our Lady, the All-holy,
To send him strength.
And to Michael the Archangel
To be near his side,
That They may not scoff at us.
For They are powerful.
And They are very unjust. ' '

MiiTTiOQ elv' TrptiiTrj rovg (ftopa
'g rr] Mdvr) rd axOTUpara ;
Tiyaps de (TKOTOiQrjva
'g Trjv KpiJTi), 'orav irdrivaai
Iku 'g rbv icXe^T-ojroXe^o ;
'orav pdg rovtsz Tra'ipvaut
efidg ot KofiparapxTj^^g '<
Tiyape Sev rh OkXa/iE
vd vat MaVidTTig VTTOvpyvg,
vd ud(7e Kdvy to koKo,
vd XiOp& TTjv VTToX-q^l/I]
'oXoi fiSffn 'tSTa (Jir'iTia pag ;
KaXot; elvai ki b KpriTtKog^
elvat peydXog dvOpunrog.
XiXia KaXd vd Kapovai
oVot Tove ^(piffaffc
Kal TQV£ (p'tpaci eird,
vd peyaXiijcy tt/v "EXXat^.
'AKQVtraTe vd trdffe ttov
TQVTO, TTOV pOV ilirZ 6 TTaTTttC '
ort ro Bgvi^gXo pag
Tove KoXkrsaai va tt^,
vd Kapy TT} yepovTiKT)
'g TTjv dyyXiKr'i Trpwrevovffa.
Mwp^ 'Pwpialg kq'i XpiffTinvalg,
TO jipdbv 'orb Xvxvdpi (sag
Ka'i 'q Tb KOVnypardKi tjag
vd ^dXTe Ta Tratdia <jag
vd Kapovfft TTjv TTpofftvxri
'g Tijv Havayia Aktnrotva,
yidi vd TOV rsTuXy Svvapij.
KL b Mt^a^X dpxdyyeXog
vd vat KOVTa 'g ttjv TrXdrrj tov,
vd pr) pdg rbv ysXdaovat.
Tt Keivot slvat lox^pot
Kal elvat kl' ddiKot ttoXv.

Reprinted, with permission, from the Quarterly Review, April, 1914.

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