Chapter 18

But Venezelos’ conciliatory proposals met with no response from the Bulgarian Government, which was in an ‘all or nothing’ mood. It swallowed Venezelos’ gift of Thrace, and then proceeded to exploit the Bulgar hinterland of Salonika as a pretext for demanding the latter city as well. This uncompromising attitude made agreement impossible, and it was aggravated by the aggressive action of the Bulgarian troops in the occupied territory, who persistently endeavoured to steal ground from the Greek forces facing them. In May there was serious fighting to the east of the Struma, and peace was only restored with difficulty. Bulgarian relations with Serbia were becoming strained at the same time, though in this case Bulgaria had more justice on her side. Serbia maintained that the veto imposed by Austria upon her expansion to the Adriatic, in coincidence with Bulgaria’s unexpected gains on the Maritsa to which Serbian arms had contributed, invalidated the secret treaty of the previous summer, and she announced her intention of retaining the Monastir district and the line of the Salonika railway as far as the future frontier of Greece. Bulgaria, on the other hand, shut her eyes to Serbia’s necessity for an untrammelled economic outlet to one sea-board or the other, and took her stand on her strictly legal treaty-rights. However the balance of justice inclined, a lasting settlement could only have been reached by mutual forbearance and goodwill; but Bulgaria put herself hopelessly in the wrong towards both her allies by a treacherous night-attack upon them all along the line, at the end of June 1913. This disastrous act was the work of a single political party, which has since been condemned by most sections of Bulgarian public opinion; but the punishment, if not the responsibility for the crime, fell upon the whole nation. Greece and Serbia had already been drawn into an understanding by their common danger. They now declared war against Bulgaria in concert. The counter-strokes of their armies met with success, and the intervention of Rumania made Bulgaria’s discomfiture certain.

The results of the one month’s war were registered in the Treaty of Bucarest. Many of its provisions were unhappily, though naturally, inspired by the spirit of revenge; but the Greek premier, at any rate, showed a statesmanlike self-restraint in the negotiations. Venezelos advocated the course of taking no more after the war than had been demanded before it. He desired to leave Bulgaria a broad zone of Aegean littoral between the Struma and Maritsa rivers, including ports capable of satisfying Bulgaria’s pressing need for an outlet towards the south. But, in the exasperated state of public feeling, even Venezelos’ prestige failed to carry through his policy in its full moderation. King George had just been assassinated in his year of jubilee, in the streets of the long-desired Salonika; and King Constantine, his son, flushed by the victory of Kilkish and encouraged by the Machiavellian diplomacy of his Hohenzollern brother-in-law, insisted on carrying the new Greek frontier as far east as the river Mesta, and depriving Bulgaria of Kavala, the natural harbour for the whole Bulgarian hinterland in the upper basins of the Mesta and Struma.

It is true that Greece did not exact as much as she might have done. Bulgaria was still allowed to possess herself of a coastal strip east of the Mesta, containing the tolerable harbours of Porto Lagos and Dedeagatch, which had been occupied during hostilities by the Greek fleet, and thus her need for an Aegean outlet was not left unsatisfied altogether; while Greece on her part was cleverly shielded for the future from those drawbacks involved in immediate contact with Turkish territory, which she had so often experienced in the past. It is also true that the Kavala district is of great economic value in itself—it produces the better part of the Turkish Régie tobacco crop—and that on grounds of nationality alone Bulgaria has no claim to this prize, since the tobacco-growing peasantry is almost exclusively Greek or Turk, while the Greek element has been extensively reinforced during the last two years by refugees from Anatolia and Thrace.

Nevertheless, it is already clear that Venezelos’ judgement was the better. The settlement at the close of the present war may even yet bring Bulgaria reparation in many quarters. If the Ruman and South Slavonic populations at present included in the complexus of Austria-Hungary are freed from their imprisonment and united with the Serbian and Rumanian national states, Bulgaria may conceivably recover from the latter those Bulgarian lands which the Treaty of Bucarest made over to them in central Macedonia and the Dobrudja, while it would be still more feasible to oust the Turk again from Adrianople, where he slipped back in the hour of Bulgaria’s prostration and has succeeded in maintaining himself ever since. Yet no amount of compensation in other directions and no abstract consideration for the national principle will induce Bulgaria to renounce her claim on Greek Kavala. Access to this district is vital to Bulgaria from the geographical point of view, and she will not be satisfied here with such rights as Serbia enjoys at Salonika—free use of the port and free traffic along a railway connecting it with her own hinterland. Her heart is set on complete territorial ownership, and she will not compose her feud with Greece until she has had her way.

So long, therefore, as the question of Kavala remains unsettled, Greece will not be able to put the preliminary problem of ‘national consolidation’ behind her, and enter upon the long-deferred chapter of ‘internal development’. To accomplish once for all this vital transition, Venezelos is taking the helm again into his hands, and it is his evident intention to close the Greek account with Bulgaria just as Serbia and Rumania hope to close theirs with the same state—by a bold territorial concession conditional upon adequate territorial compensation elsewhere.[1]

[Footnote 1: The above paragraph betrays its own date; for, since it was written, the intervention of Bulgaria on the side of the Central Powers has deferred indefinitely the hope of a settlement based upon mutual agreement.]

The possibility of such compensation is offered by certain outstanding problems directly dependent upon the issue of the European conflict, and we must glance briefly at these before passing on to consider the new chapter of internal history that is opening for the Greek nation.

The problems in question are principally concerned with the ownership of islands.

The integrity of a land-frontier is guaranteed by the whole strength of the nation included within it, and can only be modified by a struggle for existence with the neighbor on whom it borders; but islands by their geographical nature constitute independent political units, easily detached from or incorporated with larger domains, according to the momentary fluctuation in the balance of sea-power. Thus it happened that the arrival of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ at the Dardanelles in August 1914 led Turkey to reopen promptly certain questions concerning the Aegean. The islands in this sea are uniformly Greek in population, but their respective geographical positions and political fortunes differentiate them into several groups.

1. The Cyclades in the south-west, half submerged vanguards of mountain ranges in continental Greece, have formed part of the modern kingdom from its birth, and their status has never since been called into question.

2. Krete, the largest of all Greek islands, has been dealt with already. She enjoyed autonomy under Turkish suzerainty for fifteen years before the Balkan War, and at its outbreak she once more proclaimed her union with Greece. This time at last her action was legalized, when Turkey expressly abandoned her suzerain rights by a clause in the Treaty of London.

3. During the war itself, the Greek navy occupied a number of islands which had remained till then under the more direct government of Turkey, The parties to the Treaty of London agreed to leave their destiny to the decision of the powers, and the latter assigned them all to Greece, with the exception of Imbros and Tenedos which command strategically the mouth of the Dardanelles.

The islands thus secured to Greece fall in turn into several sub-groups.

Two of these are _(a)_ Thasos, Samothraki, and Lemnos, off the European coast, and _(b)_ Samos and its satellite Nikarià, immediately off the west coast of Anatolia; and these five islands seem definitely to have been given up by Turkey for lost. The European group is well beyond the range of her present frontiers; while Samos, though it adjoins the Turkish mainland, does not mask the outlet from any considerable port, and had moreover for many years possessed the same privileged autonomy as Krete, so that the Ottoman Government did not acutely feel its final severance.

_(c)_ A third group consists of Mitylini and Khios,[1] and concerning this pair Greece and Turkey have so far come to no understanding. The Turks pointed out that the littoral off which these islands lie contains not only the most indispensable ports of Anatolia but also the largest enclaves of Greek population on the Asiatic mainland, and they declared that the occupation of this group by Greece menaced the sovereignty of the Porte in its home territory. ‘See’, they said, ‘how the two islands flank both sides of the sea-passage to Smyrna, the terminus of all the railways which penetrate the Anatolian interior, while Mitylini barricades Aivali and Edremid as well. As soon as the Greek Government has converted the harbours of these islands into naval bases, Anatolia will be subject to a perpetual Greek blockade, and this violent intimidation of the Turkish people will be reinforced by an insidious propaganda among the disloyal Greek elements in our midst.’ Accordingly the Turks refused to recognize the award of the powers, and demanded the re-establishment of Ottoman sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios, under guarantee of an autonomy after the precedent of Krete and Samos.

[Footnote 1: Including its famous satellite Psarà.]

To these arguments and demands the Greeks replied that, next to Krete; these are the two largest, most wealthy, and most populous Greek islands in the Aegean; that their inhabitants ardently desire union with the national kingdom; and that the Greek Government would hesitate to use them as a basis for economic coercion and nationalistic propaganda against Turkey, if only because the commerce of western Anatolia is almost exclusively in the hands of the Greek element on the Asiatic continent. Greek interests were presumably bound up with the economic prosperity and political consolidation of Turkey in Asia, and the Anatolian Greeks would merely have been alienated from their compatriots by any such impolitic machinations. ‘Greek sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios’, the Greeks maintained, ‘does not threaten Turkish sovereignty on the Continent. But the restoration of Turkish suzerainty over the islands would most seriously endanger the liberty of their inhabitants; for Turkish promises are notoriously valueless, except when they are endorsed by the guarantee of some physically stronger power.’

Negotiations were conducted between Greece and Turkey from these respective points of view without leading to any result, and the two standpoints were in fact irreconcilable, since either power required the other to leave vital national interests at the mercy of an ancient enemy, without undertaking to make corresponding sacrifices itself. The problem probably would never have been solved by compromise; but meanwhile the situation has been entirely transformed by the participation of Turkey in the European War, and the issue between Greece and Turkey, like the issue between Greece and Bulgaria, has been merged in the general problem of the European settlement.

The Balkan War of 1912 doomed the Ottoman power in Europe, but left its Asiatic future unimpaired. By making war against the Quadruple Entente, Turkey has staked her existence on both continents, and is threatened with political extinction if the Central Powers succumb in the struggle. In this event Greece will no longer have to accommodate her régime in the liberated islands to the susceptibilities of a Turkey consolidated on the opposite mainland, but will be able to stretch out her hand over the Anatolian coast and its hinterland, and compensate herself richly in this quarter for the territorial sacrifices which may still be necessary to a lasting understanding with her Bulgarian neighbour.

The shores that dominate the Dardanelles will naturally remain beyond her grasp, but she may expect to establish herself on the western littoral from a point as far north as Mount Ida and the plain of Edremid. The Greek coast-town of Aivali will be hers, and the still more important focus of Greek commerce and civilization at Smyrna; while she will push her dominion along the railways that radiate from Smyrna towards the interior. South-eastward, Aidin will be hers in the valley of the Mendere (Maiandros). Due eastward she will re-baptize the glistening city of Ala Shehr with its ancient name of Philadelphia, under which it held out heroically for Hellenism many years after Aidin had become the capital of a Moslem principality and the Turkish avalanche had rolled past it to the sea. Maybe she will follow the railway still further inland, and plant her flag on the Black Castle of Afiun, the natural railway-centre of Anatolia high up on the innermost plateau. All this and more was once Hellenic ground, and the Turkish incomer, for all his vitality, has never been able here to obliterate the older culture or assimilate the earlier population. In this western region Turkish villages are still interspersed with Greek, and under the government of compatriots the unconquerable minority would inevitably reassert itself by the peaceful weapons of its superior energy and intelligence.

4. If Greece realizes these aspirations through Venezelos’ statesmanship, she will have settled in conjunction her outstanding accounts with both Bulgaria and Turkey; but a fourth group of islands still remains for consideration, and these, though formerly the property of Turkey, are now in the hands of other European powers.

_(a)_ The first of those in question are the Sporades, a chain of islands off the Anatolian coast which continues the line of Mitylini, Khios, and Samos towards the south-east, and includes Kos, Patmos, Astypalià, Karpathos, Kasos, and, above all, Rhodes. The Sporades were occupied by Italy during her war with Turkey in 1911-12, and she stipulated in the Peace of Lausanne that she should retain them as a pledge until the last Ottoman soldier in Tripoli had been withdrawn, after which she would make them over again to the Porte. The continued unrest in Tripoli may or may not have been due to Turkish intrigues, but in any case it deferred the evacuation of the islands by Italy until the situation was transformed here also by the successive intervention of both powers in the European War. The consequent lapse of the Treaty of Lausanne simplifies the status of the Sporades, but it is doubtful what effect it will have upon their destiny. In language and political sympathy their inhabitants are as completely Greek as all the other islanders of the Aegean, and if the Quadruple Entente has made the principle of nationality its own, Italy is morally bound, now that the Sporades are at her free disposal, to satisfy their national aspirations by consenting to their union with the kingdom of Greece. On the other hand, the prospective dissolution of the Ottoman Empire has increased Italy’s stake in this quarter. In the event of a partition, the whole southern littoral of Anatolia will probably fall within the Italian sphere, which will start from the Gulf of Iskanderun, include the districts of Adana and Adalia, and march with the new Anatolian provinces of Greece along the line of the river Mendere. This continental domain and the adjacent islands are geographically complementary to one another, and it is possible that Italy may for strategical reasons insist on retaining the Sporades in perpetuity if she realizes her ambitions on the continent. This solution would be less ideal than the other, but Greece would be wise to reconcile herself to it, as Italy has reconciled herself to the incorporation of Corsica in France; for by submitting frankly to this detraction from her national unity she would give her brethren in the Sporades the best opportunity of developing their national individuality untrammelled under a friendly Italian suzerainty.

_(b)_ The advance-guard of the Greek race that inhabits the great island of Cyprus has been subject to British government since 1878, when the provisional occupation of the island by Great Britain under a contract similar to that of Lausanne was negotiated in a secret agreement between Great Britain and Turkey on the eve of the Conference at Berlin. The condition of evacuation was in this case the withdrawal of Russia from Kars, and here likewise it never became operative till it was abrogated by the outbreak of war. Cyprus, like the Sporades, is now at the disposal of its _de facto_ possessor, and on November 5, 1914, it was annexed to the British Empire. But whatever decision Italy may take, it is to be hoped that our own government at any rate will not be influenced exclusively by strategical considerations, but will proclaim an intention of allowing Cyprus ultimately to realize its national aspirations by union with Greece.[1]

[Footnote 1: Since the above was written, this intention, under a certain condition, has definitely been expressed.]

The whole population of the island is Greek in language, while under an excellent British administration its political consciousness has been awakened, and has expressed itself in a growing desire for national unity among the Christian majority. It is true that in Cyprus, as in Krete, there is a considerable Greek-speaking minority of Moslems[1] who prefer the _status quo_; but, since the barrier of language is absent, their antipathy to union may not prove permanent. However important the retention of Cyprus may be to Great Britain from the strategical point of view, we shall find that even in the balance of material interests it is not worth the price of alienating the sympathy of an awakened and otherwise consolidated nation.

[Footnote 1: In Cyprus about 22 per cent.]

This rather detailed review of problems in the islands and Anatolia brings out the fact that Greek nationalism is not an artificial conception of theorists, but a real force which impels the most scattered and down-trodden populations of Greek speech to travail unceasingly for political unity within the national state. Yet by far the most striking example of this attractive power in Hellenism is the history of it in ‘Epirus’.[1]

[Footnote 1: The name coined to include the districts of Himarra, Argyrokastro, and Koritsà.]

The Epirots are a population of Albanian race, and they still speak an Albanian dialect in their homes; while the women and children, at any rate, often know no other language. But somewhat over a century ago the political organism created by the remarkable personality of Ali Pasha in the hinterland of the Adriatic coast, and the relations of Great Britain and France with this new principality in the course of their struggle for the Mediterranean, began to awaken in the Epirots a desire for civilization. Their Albanian origin opened to them no prospects, for the race had neither a literature nor a common historical tradition; and they accordingly turned to the Greeks, with whom they were linked in religion by membership of the Orthodox Church, and in politics by subjection to Ali’s Government at Yannina, which had adopted Greek as its official language.

They had appealed to the right quarter; for we have seen how Greek culture accumulated a store of latent energy under the Turkish yoke, and was expending it at this very period in a vigorous national revival. The partially successful War of Liberation in the ‘twenties of the nineteenth century was only the political manifestation of the new life. It has expressed itself more typically in a steady and universal enthusiasm for education, which throughout the subsequent generations of political stagnation has always opened to individual Greeks commercial and professional careers of the greatest brilliance, and often led them to spend the fortunes so acquired in endowing the nation with further educational opportunities. Public spirit is a Greek virtue. There are few villages which do not possess monuments of their successful sons, and a school is an even commoner gift than a church; while the State has supplemented the individual benefactor to an extent remarkable where public resources are so slender. The school-house, in fact, is generally the most prominent and substantial building in a Greek village, and the advantage offered to the Epirots by a _rapprochement_ with the Greeks is concretely symbolized by the Greek schools established to-day in generous numbers throughout their country.

For the Epirot boy the school is the door to the future. The language he learns there makes him the member of a nation, and opens to him a world wide enough to employ all the talent and energy he may possess, if he seeks his fortune at Patras or Peiraeus, or in the great Greek commercial communities of Alexandria and Constantinople; while, if he stays at home, it still affords him a link with the life of civilized Europe through the medium of the ubiquitous Greek newspaper.[1] The Epirot has thus become Greek in soul, for he has reached the conception of a national life more liberal than the isolated existence of his native village through the avenue of Greek culture. ‘Hellenism’ and nationality have become for him identical ideas; and when at last the hour of deliverance struck, he welcomed the Greek armies that marched into his country from the south and the east, after the fall of Yannina in the spring of 1913, with the same enthusiasm with which all the enslaved populations of native Greek dialect greeted the consummation of a century’s hopes.

[Footnote 1: There is still practically no literature printed in the Albanian language.]

The Greek troops arrived only just in time, for the ‘Hellenism’ of the Epirots had been terribly proved by murderous attacks from their Moslem neighbours on the north. The latter speak a variety of the same Albanian tongue, but were differentiated by a creed which assimilated them to the ruling race. They had been superior to their Christian kinsmen by the weight of numbers and the possession of arms, which under the Ottoman régime were the monopoly of the Moslem. At last, however, the yoke of oppression was broken and the Greek occupation seemed a harbinger of security for the future. Unluckily, however, Epirus was of interest to others besides its own inhabitants. It occupies an important geographical position facing the extreme heel of Italy, just below the narrowest point in the neck of the Adriatic, and the Italian Government insisted that the country should be included in the newly erected principality of Albania, which the powers had reserved the right to delimit in concert by a provision in the Treaty of London.