With the French in France and Salonika

by Richard Harding Davis

The position of King Constantine is very difficult. He is supposed to be strongly pro-German, and the reason for his sympathy that is given here is the same as is accepted in America. Every act of his is supposed to be inspired by family influences, when, as he has stated publicly through his friend Walter Harris of the London Times, he is pro-English, and has been actuated solely by what he thought was best for his own people. Indeed, there are many who believe if the terms upon which Greece might join the Allies had been left to the King instead of to Venizelos, Greece now would be with the Entente.

Or, if Greece remained neutral, no one could better judge whether neutrality was or was not best for her than Constantine. In the three years before the World War, he had led his countrymen through two wars, and if both, as King and commander of her armies, he thought they needed rest and peace, he was entitled to that opinion. Instead, he was misrepresented and abused. His motives were assailed; he was accused of being dominated by his Imperial brother-in-law. At no time since the present war began has he been given what we would call a “square deal.” The writer has followed the career of Constantine since the Greek-Turkish war of 1897, when they “drank from the same canteen,” and as Kings go, or until they all do go, respects him as a good King. To his people he is generous, kind, and considerate; as a general he has added to the territory of Greece many miles and seaports; he is fond of his home and family, and in his reign there has been no scandal, no Knights of the Round Table, such as disgraced the German court, no Tripoli massacre, no Congo atrocities, no Winter Garden or La Scala favorites. Venizelos may or may not be as unselfish a patriot. But justly or not, it is difficult to disassociate what Venizelos wants for Greece with what he wants for Venizelos. The King is removed from any such suspicion. He is already a King, and except in continuing to be a good King, he can go no higher.

How Venizelos came so prominently into the game is not without interest. As long ago as when the two German cruisers escaped from Messina and were sold to Turkey, the diplomatic representatives of the Allies in the Balkans were instructed to see that Turkey and Germany did not get together, and that, as a balance of power in case of such a union, the Balkan States were kept in line. Instead of themselves attending to this, the diplomats placed the delicate job in the hands of one man. At the framing of the Treaty of London, of all the representatives from the Balkans, the one who most deeply impressed the other powers was M. Venizelos. And the task of keeping the Balkans neutral or with the Allies was left to him.

He has a dream of a Balkan “band,” a union of all the Balkan principalities. It obsesses him. And to bring that dream true he was willing to make concessions which King Constantine, who considered only what was good for Greece, and was not concerned with a Balkan alliance, thought most unwise. Venizelos also was working for the good of Greece, but he was convinced it could come to her only through the union. He was willing to give Kavalla to Bulgaria in exchange for Asia Minor, from the Dardanelles to Smyrna. But the King would not consent. As a buffer against Turkey, he considered Kavalla of the greatest strategic value, and he had the natural pride of a soldier in holding on to land he himself had added to his country. But in his opposition to Venizelos in this particular, credit was not given him for acting in the interests of Greece, but of playing into the hands of Germany.

Another step he refused to take, which refusal the Allies attributed to his pro-German leanings, was to attack the Dardanelles. In the wars of 1912-13 the King showed he was an able general. With his staff he had carefully considered an attack upon the Dardanelles. He submitted this plan to the Allies, and was willing to aid them if they brought to the assault 400,000 men. They claim he failed them. He did fail them, but not until after they had failed him by bringing thousands of men instead of the tens of thousands he knew were needed.

The Dardanelles expedition was not required to prove the courage of the French and British. Beyond furnishing fresh evidence of that, it has been a failure. And in refusing to sacrifice the lives of his subjects the military judgment of Constantine has been vindicated. He was willing to attack Turkey through Kavalla and Thrace, because by that route he presented an armed front to Bulgaria. But, as he pointed out, if he sent his army to the Dardanelles, he left Kavalla at the mercy of his enemy. In his mistrust of Bulgaria he has certainly been justified.

Greece is not at war, but in outward appearance she is as firmly on a war footing as is France or Italy. A man out of uniform is conspicuous, and all day regiments pass through the streets carrying the campaign kit and followed by the medical corps, the mountain batteries, and the transport wagons. In the streets the crowds are cheering Denys Cochin, the special ambassador from France. He makes speeches to them from the balcony of our hotel, and the mob wave flags and shout “Zito! Zito!”

In a play Colonel Savage produced, I once wrote the same scene and placed it in the same hotel in Athens. In Athens the local color was superior to ours, but George Marion stage-managed the mob better than did the Athens police.

Athens is in a perplexed state of mind. She does not know if she wants to go to war or wants peace. She does not know if she should go to war, on which side she wants to fight. People tell you frankly that their heart-beats are with France, but that they are afraid of Germany.

“If Germany wins,” they asked, “what will become of us? The Germans already are in Monastir, twenty miles from our border. They have driven the Serbians, the French, and the British out of Serbia, and they will make our King a German vassal.”