GREECE'S EVIL INFLUENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 March 1916, Page 8

GREECE'S EVIL INFLUENCE.

.' THE SHADOW OV CONSTANTINE, HOW GREEK" VACILLATION 1, AND INTRIGUE HAS HAMPERED ALLIES' ACTION. (Sydney Sun Correspondent). London, January 29. Far be it from any nation to judge its neighbors in the heat and trouble of to-day. But little Greece lias given us real cause for regret and disappointment, she has cost us blood and opportunity, and she must submit to treatment which no .other State deserves or gets. Through the kindness of friends of Australia I can give many unknown 1 fact sabout the strange story, though I think in the end it will be agreed that lack of moral strength more than actual desire to harm us has been the cause of our troubles in Athens and along the railway to Ghevgleik. It should be understood at the outset tliat Greece has now forfeited many rights, and for the time being is not taken seriously as a sovereign State. She was pledged to Serbia. Under Paissia's guidance she entered an alliance essential to her own safety, and agreed with M. Pashitch, veteran upbuilder of Greater Serbia, that an attack by Bul- [ garia on either would be resisted by J both. When the time came for Greece to make good her vows we entered Sa'onika to help her—the French going in first because they arrived first, and because when at Marseilles several divisions of French and two divisions of Bri' /tish met together in the camps the British chivalrously gave first use of the British transports to General Sarrail's force. The military arrangements were quite definite, and the Greek army, with British and French, were to face the Bulgarians whilst the heroic Sorbs fought off the Austro-German invaders in the north. But the wealthy classes and the Court in Greece at that time were paralysed by

FEAR OF THE CENTRAL POWERS ARTILLERY. •by a conviction that Germany was winning the war. And we had scarcely began debarkation at Salonika when Venezolos was compelled by King Constantine to leave office, the third and four Greek army corps were ordered to Salonika, and Greek officialdom was instructed to put every barrier in our way that ingenuity and regulation could construct. At one time we suspended debarkation, so alarming were the prospects of Greece turning upon our backs, cutting off our communications and annihilating our Balkan hopes. When at length we began to push towards Serbia we had to leave a great force encamped behind barbed wire at Salonika, and a powerful fleet was ready to deal with Greek treachery. You will understand the kind of trouble that prevented our rapid movement when T tell you that on the ill-equipped Greek railway to (he frontier we were compelled to pass each soldier through the barrier at the Salonika ticket window, each man purchasing a ticket, and paying first-class fares for cattle-truck accommodation. Our transports had to make way in the harbor for the Greek transports. Constantine having ordered that the Greektroops should be moved round by sea, and our trains moved slowlv and with due regard to a decree that in every way, by rail and on road, the Greek army should be given precedence. A great section of the Greek public had been hynotised by the splendid G'ornian agents. At' Salonika the crowds spat behind our backs.

THE FATAL DELAY. True, we could not have saved Serbia. We were slow ourselves in getting men to ftreece, and we could not have carried out our own part of the Balkan bargain, so undecided were our politicians about the best way of doing it. I have a letter this week from a man whose name is one of the most famous of the war. ''Wait and see," he writes, "means 'Too late.' Think in oceans and shoot at sight—that is war." The saying can he applied to the Balkans as well as the Dardanelles; hut that is! beside my point. The fact is that' though we never had enough men through Salonika to save Serbia, we could have saved many of her fine soldiers and enabled the Seriban exit to bo less of a rout if we had not suffered the handicaps imposed by flreece. We would have got to Nish.' We could not have held it. hut we would have linked there with the Serbian eastern nvinv. »nd the joint force would to-day be entrenched on that strong mountain round Demirkapn instead of back of Salonika, whence an offensive against Bulgaria will indeed be an arduous and difficult undertaking. It _'ls almost miraculous that these delays in Greece did not end in the extermination of our expedition. At one time, during the great retreat from Krivohik, we hnd Bulgarians around us on three sides, and their artillery was established at our back. Our Tonth Division, General Malion'.s Irishmen, who fought so gallantly at Snvla Bay. was at one time cut off. This unfortunate division will live in our history with the glorious 2f)tli, which every Anzac knows. True, it did not do all that was expected at Suvln. But it hold out. there, losing heavily. And it was suddenly whisked across to Salonika, though in tropical fighting costume, in ''shorts.'' and without water-proof sheets or more than one b'anket and a doubtful overcoat apiece, to the

AWFUL RIfIORS OF THE BALKAN MOUNTAIN PASSES. Here its suffering was intense. An Australian hospital unit, which handled many hundreds of these suffering Irishmen, tells how the men wei'e without provision against the bitterly cold and wet weather, how they tiuiTcred fvom frostbite, how they lost amis and hands and feet. A French doctor, in a diary which has appeared in the Times, describes the daily prorc.ssioi- of

hundred* of frostbitten men. Unaccustomed to such irgors, unversed even in the simple precautions against frostbite, which every Australian soldier should learn, they found in this experience as terrible a privation as any indicted by the flies afld by the floods in Callipoli. But we had' the luck of ■the weather in the retreat, for.the Bulgarians failed to get up their artillery over the muddy roads, and fogs hindered them. One French company lost its way in the fog, and it i» presumed that of its men were captured. Another company, belonging to a Now .Army battalion, was wandering for many hours'with lio idea of its whereabouts. But the whole retreat was a masterly proceeding, and we left nothing for the Bulgarians to call, booty. General Sarrail, whose-very advanced political views have kept him from the confidences of the inner French military set, was to be recalled just before the retreat, on the ground that he had failed to push onto Nish. His brilliant handling of the retreat saved him, and when General Joffre visited Salonika later, he found that General Sarrail had used his engineering knowledge and BeFfort experience to such effect that his position, both as General in the French army, and defender of the great entrenched camp he had made, was secure. General Sarrail has since been appointed, with consent, supreme . chief of the Allied armies iii Greece.

COMPLACENT GREECE. -' Skilful journalists had forecasted that even a slight reverse to our expeditionary force would bring Greece swinging in against us. They were, wrong. There was perhaps nothing so typically Greek in these remarkable two months as the reception accorded to our men when they marched hack to the port. The Anglo-French expedition seven miles inland were a long way away, and dependent upon a line o'f communications which Greece had a fair chance of cutting. But. the AngloFrench force back in Salonika was close at hand, its numbers were mighty, its strength was something to quiver at. Not until our force was patent to the Greeks, close to their very heart, and supported.by a sea power Whictf was exercising just sufficient control of Greek commerce to make the wealthy shipowners and merchants rue their pro-German- , ism, did we begin to receive that favorable treatment which we had expected from the moment of our landing, and which appears now to be Greece's settled policy. Mediterraneans are more easily impressed through their senses than through their intelligences, and here, in the presence or our might, their eyes gave the lie to what the Germans j agents had been dinning into their ears. I Constantino, who had truly typified the i Greek feeling of fear of Germany, and ! expectation of Germany's triumph, ! wobbled sufficiently on to our side to I give Sarrail excuse' for establishing com-1 pleto authority in Salonika. Our re- ■' infnrcements and munitions poured into ' the town, our moneyp assed amongst j the inhabitants, and made them richef | than they had ever dreamed. Our naval officers took over the administration of the harbor. We induced the •' Greek civil authorities to look to us for j their orders, and by the beginning of .lanuary it was so much an Anglo-French ! port that we began to turn out the ' many hundreds of spies, and arrested \ the enemy Consuls and their staffs and families and packed thorn off to Switzerland. An American journalistic friend who has just returned from Holland tells me that at The Hague spies of all nationalities are so thick that escape is impossible. He left his bags open, knowing that tlipy would be forced during his first absence from his room: but ho forgot to unlock his typewriter, with the result that when' he returned he found the case smashed. Salonika was Holland, one hundred times worse. Tt is sufficient to say that the French and British soldiers liad to arrest nearly all the local courtesans, and very many accomplished women of ■European cities, who had followed the armies thither, when they seized documentary evidence at the 'consulates enabling them to. say exactly who had been spying. . •"' ' "TINO." '"

While I write the chances of flreece at last fulfilling her obligations to Serbia are improving', and we may yet have the stocky, easy-hearted fireek soldiers fighting by our' side. Constantino has agreed to the Bulgarians descending across the frontier upon Salonika ; and though it is unbelievable lhat he would have consented had he and his (ierman advisers thought the risk of a fireek uprising against these hereditary enemies probable, there is a dear certainty that the rapes and outrages and lootings of these wild and uncontrollable Bulgarians will cause trouble. Moreover, it is certain that Constantine will not oppose any strong demand from his people for war. Not many days ago. while ill and depressed, he sent for Vcnizelos, and begged the veteran to return to power. To the King's disordered eyes, the world was changing again, the German eagle which he had backed as triumphant was falling in strength, and his own people were seeking to end his dynasty. Venizolos repeated his old terms—entry into the war by the side of the Allies as soon- as there were 300.000 British and French soldiers in flreece. This could not comfort the King. What he wanted was Vonezelos and peace, not zolos and war; and that awful condition of drift continued to carry flreece into loss of honor and respect, Constantine remains one of the interesting personalities of the war. ; for he has moral courage, and defied Prime Minister, (Parliament and people when he refused to enter the war. How much "Australians owe to his influence it is hard to say. Undoubtedly the atlUudo of (Ireecc had much to do in luring us on to the Dardanelles, and we felt' assured that fireeee would join us there. Constantine has •aid that he would have led hi, a rmv against the Turks if we had taken his e.dviep about

THE MODE OF ATTACK OX CONSTANTINOPLE. iiml that he warned us against the plans adopted by (Jenorft! Hamilton. The Ureek Oencru'l Stuff Is said to have offered us. as a present, a clever strategical plan, which Constantino and his advisers thought invincible.-But on that score it may well be asked, how much of our aptniil to Berlin and Constantinople through the secret channels connected with the Athens Courts with the Kaiser's agents, and how much more insecure our position would have been if we had followed proposals outlined bv t)ie husband of Wilhelm's sistor, gnnsfpntin'' bits mode S pme show lately of throwing oVPl'.llU bqspm frlpntl, llaion Schenk, and of dismissing several iof those secret German advisers syha j licld him, so tight that they evpn C0(l- ---, tinlled f|ip censprshij) of Apglo-French I'eorrosjiondniipo from Salonika. Buf all ' this is nothing mote tiu.ii (3onsta.ntipn ! s habitual temperament, which now fears'

the Allied strength, arm- nc-:-* in the distance the triumph of the Allies' might. A little hand of Hellenophilos still meets under the presidency of K. ,T. SodJon's old Minister, Mr. PciriW Jtecves. it is called the Anglo-Hellenic Society, S.nd has been making a last despairing ofl'ort to save Greece's good name. But it has scarcely held np its head since direct evidence came in hand that :!.'..• Greek islanders of the Aegean were sheltering and supplying German submarines, which in turn were taking the lives of Tiritish and French soldiers—and a few Australians, too. We know now that these islanders have not welcomed the survivors from our torpedoed transports; that on one occasion tliev drove tlinni off willi sticks. We know'also that the seizing of a King's messenger and highly-important official ' papers on h Greek steamer wns due to direct connivance and licensed spying . We know that she lias cost us many lives and caused ns very serious difficulties, from which we are not yet free. We think that she lias bad a hand in all our troubles in (lie Eastern Mediterranean. And so the affection of the British people for Greece is dead.