TRAGEDY OF GREECE.

Shannon News, 20 February 1923, Page 2

TRAGEDY OF GREECE.

DRAINED OF BLOOD AND MONEY

"The Greeks have been at war for . ten years," says the London Observer. "They have been drained of blood and money. At the end they have lost everything that was promised them. The bead Sea fruit of hope has turned to dust and ashes. On the fringe of Asia Minor, lonian settlement after tHfi 3000 years of its survival from an age before Horner is destroyed at last. King Tino and his tools have ruined a race.' Imagine how we should feel if all the British Empire outside thjese islands had been wiped out by servile and credulous incompetence. That in-; competence in high places means that tens of thousands of the common i eople of the, Hellenes have died in vain. ! At any price, statesmen in all countries; must be deterred from playing with' ' war, and from the habit of assuming with impunity that the sedentary blundering of middle-aged or senilepoliticians can always be covered up by the slaughter of youth. Greece is' ruined, however, and present showing suggests the plunge from bad to worse. M. Venizelos made a fatal blunder when he simultaneously antagonised Bulgaria, Turkey and Russia. He might redeem the situation partially by reconstituting the Balkan League. He cannot do that unless he can induce the unhappy Greek people 1 to make the concessions required for a thorough alliance with Sofia. Now that the Turks are back on the old' footing in Eastern "Ifhrace, Bulgaria becomes the key of the Balkans.