Η περιοχή μας και η ανατύναξη της γέφυρας του Δεμιρ Ισσάρ, στο βιβλίο Constantine I and the Greek people,1920
Η περιοχή μας και η ανατύναξη της γέφυρας του Δεμιρ Ισσάρ, στο βιβλίο Constantine I and the Greek people, του Paxton Hibben, 1920
ing to compel the return of Venizelos to power,
and through that means to add the Greek army
to the Entente forces in Macedonia. The as- surances contained in the British Legation's communique of November 19, 1915, that "it is not
the intention of the Alhed powers to constrain
Greece to abandon her neutrahty" were shown
to have been mere paper words marking a subtler
policy of undeclared, but effective, hostility to
every other regime in Greece save that of the
Allies' man, Venizelos. This "unconstitutionality" thesis was an afterthought. Venizelos
himself had first accepted the Constitution of the
Zaimis cabinet, and then had overthrown it, forcing the dissolution of the Boule and new elections. It was only when he became convinced
that elections would spell his defeat that he re- called the existence of the Constitution, article
XCIX of which he had violated in his invitation
to a foreign army to land on Greek soil, without
a special law.
The forced evacuation of Saloniki by the Greek
troops ; the taking possession by the Allies of the
Greek railways and telegraphs in Macedonia and
the ^gean islands; the Allied seizure of Milo,
Castellorizo, and Corfu on top of their previous
occupation of Imbros, Lemnos, Tenedos, and
Mitylene; the press campaign in England and
France against King Constantine and his government; the continual blockade of Greece with
no reason given for its maintenance—these things
deeply angered the Greeks and did more to en- gender hostility against the Entente than all the
rather too obvious and fruitless propaganda of
Baron von Schenck, the German agent in Athens.
The climax of an intolerable situation was
reached when General Sarrail ordered his troops
to destroy the steel bridge over the Struma
River near Demir Hissar. The bridge constituted the only line of communication between the
Greek forces in eastern Macedonia and their staff
commander. General Moscopoulos, whose headquarters were still in Saloniki. It was also the
only land means of transporting supplies to the
Greek soldiers in that sector. The open roadstead of Cavalla offered very limited facilities for
an organized commissary service. The bridge,
too, had cost a great deal of money. Its destruction for military purposes was scarcely necessary
in view of the fact that the Greek army on th
Allies' right wing had once before protected General Sarrail's force from a flank attack and were
still in a position to do so again at need. So
long as the Greeks did not evacuate eastern
Macedonia, the Bulgarians could not descend
into that sector without encountering a resistance
from the Greeks whose mobilization was being
continued solely to meet such an emergency. On
the other hand, the evacuation of eastern Macedonia—of which no one in Greece then dreamed —would have required weeks, owing to the limited harbor facilities of Cavalla. There would
therefore have been time a-plenty to destroy the
Demir Hissar bridge before any such evacuation
could be completed.
The reason for General Sarrail's act was precisely that which had motived the other drastic measures he had taken toward the Greeks. His
intelligence service was largely composed of active
adherents of Venizelos. The Entente legations
in Athens secured the information they furnished
General Sarrail from Mr. Venizelos himself, with
whom they were in constant conference, and from
his partizans. Both Mr. Venizelos and his followers wished to force the retirement of the Skou
loudis government, in the belief that King Constantine would be compelled to recall the Cretan
to power and thus renew the contact of Venizelos'
followers with the public treasury. Whatever
advice these interested parties could give the Entente officials to inspire repressive measures upon
the Skouloudis government—and incidentally
upon all of Greece—was given with a will. The
interest of the Entente was enlisted by the as- surance that once Venizelos was returned to
power, Greece would promptly be unconditionally joined to the Entente and an army of
250,000 men added to the Allies, who were in dire
need of such an increase of their force.
King Constantine was as well aware of these
intrigues and their motive as every one else in
Greece. He had tried to clear the atmosphere
by a frank statement of his intentions. When he
found that this was misinterpreted, he made a number of more detailed explanations of the reasons for his attitude, to representatives of the
foreign press. Neither were these received in
any greater spirit of fairness to the Greek monarch. On January 13, therefore, when the news
of the destruction of the Demir Hissar bridge
reached him, implying subtly as the act did that
the Greek troops east of the Strmna River were
a menace instead of a protection to General
Sarrail's army, King Constantine sent for me to
come to the palace.
He was very deeply mov«d by the trend of
events in Greece and especially by the whole
hostile attitude of the Allies toward his government, which he knew to be founded on no tenable
grounds. He told me that he wished to express
through the American press his profound indignation at "the unheard-of high-handedness of the
recent action of the AlHes toward Greece."
With scarcely suppressed rage he recited one by
one a bill of wrongs committed by the Allied
forces in Macedonia. Beginning with the unfulfilled promise to send 150,000 men to the rescue
of Serbia, which had almost induced Greece to
share the tragic fate of her ally—a fate escaped
only by the caution of the Greek general staff in
delaying action until it could be seen how much
of a force France and England would really
send—^he took up detail after detail of systematic
mistreatment of the Greeks by the Entente.
The pillage of the Greek churches in Macedonia
of invaluable icons for which a few cents were
left on the altar by the Allied soldiers who took
them; the forced evacuation of Greek peasants
from their homes to make room for Allied camps
and earthworks ; the destruction of whole villages
between the warring lines ; the Allied assumption
of military control of Greece's second city; the
Allied exercise of police powers in Greek waters
;
the imprisonment of Greeks upon charges of es- pionage with no opportunity given them to defend
themselves or to face their accusers—an unending catalogue of what the indignant monarch
called "the Allies' encroachments on the sov- ereignty of Greece, culminating in the occupation of Corfu and the destruction of the Demir
Hissar bridge."
Probably no such arraignment of the conduct
of civilized powers by the ruler of a free country
as that I listened to from King Constantine has
ever been made in history. He knew every
wrong to every individual peasant, every insult
flung at a veteran of Kilkis or Janina, every oc- casion upon which Allied aviators had dropped
bombs as if by accident upon Greek camps—and
he felt these things far more than all the abuse
and ridicule of his own person that had been published in the Entente press—with the permission
of the government censors. "It is the merest cant," he thundered, "for
England and France to talk about Germany's
violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg after what they themselves have done
and are doing here. I have tried every way I
know how to get fair play from the British and
French press and a fair hearing by the British
and French public. No sooner has a British
newspaper attacked Greece with the most amazing perversions of fact and misrepresentations
of motives than I have called its correspondent
and given him face to face a full statement of
Greece's position. I have given the frankest
statement to the French press through one of the
newspapers most bitterly attacking Greece. Its
publication was not permitted by the French
censor. The only forum of public opinion open
to me is America. The situation is far too vital
for me to care a snap about royal dignity in the
matter of interviews when the very life of Greece
as an independent country is at stake. I shall
appeal to America again and again, if necessary,
and ridicule of his own person that had been published in the Entente press—with the permission
of the government censors. "It is the merest cant," he thundered, "for
England and France to talk about Germany's
violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg after what they themselves have done
and are doing here. I have tried every way I
know how to get fair play from the British and
French press and a fair hearing by the British
and French public. No sooner has a British
newspaper attacked Greece with the most amazing perversions of fact and misrepresentations
of motives than I have called its correspondent
and given him face to face a full statement of
Greece's position. I have given the frankest
statement to the French press through one of the
newspapers most bitterly attacking Greece. Its
publication was not permitted by the French
censor. The only forum of public opinion open
to me is America. The situation is far too vital
for me to care a snap about royal dignity in the
matter of interviews when the very life of Greece
as an independent country is at stake. I shall
appeal to America again and again, if necessary,
which cost a million and a half drachmae and
which is the only practicable route by which my
troops in eastern Macedonia can be revictualed?
The bridge was mined and could have been blown
up at a moment's notice at the approach of the
enemy. It is admitted that no enemies were anywhere near the bridge, and there was no indication that they were coming. What military
reason, therefore, was there to blow up the bridge
now, except to starve out the Greek troops
around Serres and Drama? Where is the necessity of the occupation of Corfu? If Greece is an
ally of Serbia, so is Italy, and the transportation
from Albania to Italy is simpler than to Corfu.
Is it that the Italians refuse to accept the Serbs,
fearing the spread of cholera? Why should the
Allies think the Greeks want to be endangered by
a cholera epidemic any more than the Italians?
They say that they are occupying Castelloriza,
Corfu, and other points in the search for submarine bases. The British Legation in Athens
has a standing offer of two thousand pounds—
a
great fortune to any Greek fisherman—for information leading to the detection of submarine
bases, but it has never yet received any about a
