The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1918. A NATION RECALLED TO LIFE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 August 1918, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1918. A NATION RECALLED TO LIFE

» y,— People who have followed the public utterances of German and Austrian Ministers clurinjr teeent months tannot have failed to note their.habitual avoidance of any reference to Greece, The silence is noteworthy, but easily 'explained. While CoNSTANTiNB still held, sway at Athens, and was being pressed by the Allies not to remain a puppet of the Kaiser, but to take a course consistent- honour and interest- of tho nation over v which he had sworn to rule justly, the Pan-Germans raised a clamour of protest. The world was invited to observe the Entente Powers, the pledged protectors of little nations, shamelessly coercing one of _ these little nations and bending it to their will. 'Since that-time- everything that the,Pan-Germans most desired to prevbnt in Gmcco has como to pass. Constantine .has given place to a King who understands thatha rules by the democratic will of his countrymen. The dissensions that foi'merly split the Greeks into warring factions have been stilled. Under the leadership of M. Venize''los the nation, has been politically reconstructed, and, having mobilised its Army, is standing shoulder to shoulder with the Allies- in the war of liberation. It is assuredly not because they are pleased with these developments that tho PanGermans have fallen silent about Greece. They have two good reasons for holding their peace. Ono is that whatever hopes they formerly entertained of stirring up civil war, and ■perhaps restoring Constantinb. to .the throne of which he was so unworthy, have completely faded away. But there is an even better reason for Pan-German silence- in regard to Greece! Her vicissitudes during the war period have afforded tho whole world clear and incontestable evidence, on the one hand of German perfidy, and on the- other of the hojiest good faith of the Allies and thflir unvarying observance'of the principles they profess. There was actinic when some neutral observers found, or professed to find, in Allied policy towards Greece an approach, though not a parallel, to Germany's treatment of small nations which had fallen into her power. To-day even a., prejudiced jury would be constrained to admit that the Allies have saved Greece from hopeless ruin and disaster. For every step they took in intervention they had and have an ample .justification under international law and the treaty by which they arc pledged to maintain the independence and integrity of Greece. But their action is even, better justified in-the fact that it preserved Greek liberties when these could have been preserved in no other way. In dethroning Constantine the Allies did not attack Greece, but eliminated her .worst'enemy—an enemy who' strove by open violence and secret treason to'overthrow the Greek-,Constitution and m?.kc his-country a humble catspaw 1,0 Germany. For its escape from' this living death the- Greek na,tibn is indebted first and fore'most to its great leader,. VENimqs, and those who supported -his' undaunted efforts in the.days.wb^.n-the outlook seemed a)' but hoptless. But Venizelos and his , followers would have laboured and struggled in vain had not the Allies taken the decisive action which gave Greece an open pathway to tho recovery of her liberties.

How well Greece lias recovered from the state to which she was reduced by Constantine's treason has been made evident in many ways, best of all in the whole-hearted energy with whicli the nation is concentrating upon military preparation. When Greece, on June 27, celebrated the anniversary of her entry into the war, M. Venizelos and his supporters looked back upon a year of achievement of which they have every right to be proud. It was on June 12, 1917, that Constantine took his enforced departure from Athens, and within a fortnight M. Venizelos reached the capital from Salonika, where he had already organised a force of 60,000 men to co-operate with the Allied armies on the Macedonian front, called together the- Chamber of Deputies of .Tune, 1915, and, as a Times correspondent put it, took up the task of healing the breach between the constitutional traditions of the country and the Athenian Royalists who had supported Constantine's autocracy. Formidable difficulties stood in the way. The country was on the verge of starvation, and though it was already at war, mobilisation could not bo begun without food and equipment. Irt spite of the extent to which his energies wprc absorbed in uniting hostile factions, M. Vbnizf-ios found it necessary to visit London and Paris in November last to make arrangements in regard to essential supplies. The result of his labours at home and abroad was, in the words of the correspondent already quoted, that "by the end of the year . . . Greece was adequately

rationed and the political temperament of the country-was returning to normal. With the return of normal conditions," it is added, "the people had almost automatically rejected what remained.of the elaboratp system of German propaganda.; and at the beginning of tho year the country.was morally and physically prepared for a general mobilisation.'.' Pro-German traitors did not at once desist from their underground machinations, but the few feeble efforts upon which they ventured were easily and swiftly suppressed. From the time when M. Ven.izei.os , resumed control it was never for a moment in doubt that' his power rested upon the genuine will of the Greek people. In the present mobilisation, the Peloponnesus, formerly the chief stronghold of the Royalists, has sent twenty per cent, more men to the colours than in the mobilisation of 1915. Equally striking evidence of the temper of tho neoplc is afforded in the fact that when two of Constantine's emissaries wore landed in the' Peloponnesus in March last from an Austrian submarine, they were nuickly denounced and arrested. Many similar facts might be cited as showing how completely (lie Greek masses arc in accord with M. Vknizelos in the policy for which he stands.

By this time the Gi'eek mobilisation is probably complete, anrl_ it means an addition of something ovor three hundred thousand men to the Allied fighting strength. Though conditions of stalemate have long

ruled on Hie Balkan front, the new Greek troops have more tliiin oiicc given signal evidence of their quality. As long iifio its last April they co-opci'atetl with British forces in a successful action in which the Bulgitt's Were driven out of half a dozen Villages in the Struma valley, A couple of months ago the Greeks engaged in a more ambitious enterprise. They stormed strong Bulgarian positions at Skra di Legen, on a front of eight miles, and caphired more than 1500 prisoners. Linked with the Allies, Greece is wiping out the stain which rests upon her reputation as a result of Constantijje's betrayal of Serbia in that, gallant little country's hour of greatest need. She is defending her rights against her ■ hereditary enemies,, the Bulgars, whose dominance in the Balkans would in itself have niil'dc her national future intolerable. Best of all she is con-' sciously pursuing the highest ideals and is determined at once to maintain her own independence and assist to the limits of her power in freeing the world from the menace of German domination. That she has reached this condition after being carried to the brink of ruin b.v Constanttne and his gang of German and nro-German plotters is an admirable vindication of the- Allied nations whose aid and protection were essential to her recovery. The merits of the war have nowhevo been laid open more clearly to the gaze of the world than in the changing fortunes of Greece durinpr the last four years, and in the full reestablishment of her liberties she now enjoys.