The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1916. GREEK TREACHERY.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1916. GREEK TREACHERY.

Throughout all Anjlo-French communities and in all countries where honor is respected, there will have been caused a feeling of the utmost horror at the treachery of the Greeks on Friday last. The various accounts of what is justly described as a massacre are of such a nature as to make the blood of all right-minded people boil with indignation, and cause them to cry aloud for a vengeance that will be commensurate with the awful crime of the treacherous Greeks. From the very outset of the Balkan campaign King Constantine has fooled the Entente Powers by temporising and false promises, always meaning to strike a treacherous blow when a favorable opportunity offered. It is evident he judged that time had arrived, and that it would be safe to let the pro-German element 'loose on the Allies in such a way as to protect ihimself and deliver an assassin's attack on the enemies of his German paymaster. The marvel is that the Anglo-French authorities should for so long have tolerated Constantino's manifest duplicity. General Sarrail was fully alive to the risks of Greek treachery, for some time back he frustrated the plan lor striking him, for which the Greek mobilisation was ordered. He appreciated from the first that the Greek Court was in league with the Czar of Bulgaria, that everyI thing he did—the refusal to seep the

Serbian treaty, the mobilisation of the army, the surrender of territories, the refusal to give pussagc to the Serbian troops, the permission of the German submarine bases, the surrender of troops, tlie persistent disgrace of Vcnizolos, tlie constitutional champion—wag done in tbo Prussian interest and pay, and at the Prussian dictation. Ferdinand and Coiistantine have been hand-and-glovc so far back as tlie day when Ferdinand and his Minister, Radislavoff, were proclaiming their devotion to neutrality, which really meant •playing into the hands of the Huns. Again and again has Constantine played tricks on the Allies, and now •he lias sanctioned, if not fostered, one oi the grossest outrages that have marked the conduct of the war. It is almost incredible, in the face of this endless series of Greek machinations, that the Allies should have the slightest faith or trust in the promises of Constantine or his Ministers, and we find that trusting to this evil-intentioned monarch the Allied troops walked into a carefully-prepared trap, and were massacred, being surrounded before a shot was. fired. It was only the big guns from the French Fleet that prevented the annihilation of the whole force Apparently this assassin's work was the signal for indulgence by tlie pro-German Greeks in an orgie oX vengeance against the Venizelists, who were hunted like dogs, and treated with, the utmost cruelty. That, however,' is merely the Greeks' way of paying their debts. What really matters is the moral effect of the defeat sustained by this treacherous and unprovoked gunfire on the Allies forces, and what the move really signifies. According to Mr. Ward Price the events which have just occurred are completely changing the situation on the Balkan front, as it seems possible that the Greek army may attack the Allies in the rear, or at Salonika. Additional force is lent to this view by the later news, which states that Constantine is quietly and secretly mobilising for war against the Entente Powers,,but is doing it in such a way as to gain time, in the hope that Mackensen will be able to afford Greece protection and assistance in her villainous project. Surely the limit of the patience and forbearance of the Allies has been reached, and the time for settling accounts with Greece once and for all has arrived. There is not the slightest reason why, after such an outrage, Athens shtmld not be reduced to ashes, and Constantine made to pay the penalty of his treachery, Greece has become loathsome in her morality, and the sooner slic is purified by fire the better it will be for the cause of the Allies. A drastic lesson of this nature would be well understood by the Germans, and not be without ail appreciable effect on their outlook; but, above all, the code of national honor demands the utmost penalty for such a base outrage as that which has just been perpetrated by Constantine and •hig co-conspirators.