During this council the Chief of Staff of the army, Gen. v. Dousmanis, was sent for, and he gave the Ministers some information of a military character regarding the position of Greece. Gen. Dousmanis assured them that the army was in excellent condition and that all preliminary preparations for a mobilization were already taken.
FRENCH, GREEKS, AND GERMANS.
[Editorial comment of the Athenae of Aug. 9 (Sept. 21)]:
... In Greece there does not exist a discrimination between those who love France and those who do not, because as a rule the entire nation worships France. The Hellenic world, from the most uneducated citizen to the one who represents all the development of intellect, worships France.
It was always with admiration that the discerning Hellenic intellect looked upon the French Nation, which is the leader in every progress. French letters, French art, and French industry have found in Greece sincere admirers and enthusiastic heralds. The French heroism, the devotion that every Frenchman feels for the ideals of the fatherland, the superiority of the French woman, whom certain malevolent writers have so misrepresented to the world; the virtue of the French housewife, the French mother, and the French patriot, have always been splendid examples to those who are apt to think on the world's progress. The birthplace of the forerunners of the modern social and civic spirit and the mother of the most genuine philhellenism, the France of Rabelais, Molière and Voltaire and Béranger and Hugo has always been an object of respectful sympathy for those in Greece who are admirers of the beautiful, the liberal, and the ideal.
Every one of us knows that, if France has not been able to help materialize the Greek's rightful aspirations, this is not due to lack of good intentions on her part, but rather to the French compliance with the interests of the Slav; and we know that France had to cultivate those interests by her own wealth, and contrary to her democratic principles, only in order to have an alliance against her neighboring enemy, against whom she meditated revenge for a defeat and the vindication of her subjugated children.
For the German people, this people of progress and civilization, which has never aspired to a world hegemony by the subjugation of other peoples, outside of the needs of their frontiers, Greece feels the same admiration and sympathy. And when such French patriots as Jules Huret and Georges Bourdon, in voluminous works, have cited the German progress and German social civilization as an example to their own country, it would be almost a reversal of logic if we outsiders were to deny these things, at the sight of two friends who have come to blows.
If there is anything that grieves the Greek soul, which has always been used to appreciate virtue disinterestedly, it is the fratricidal woe of two nations who ought to be, hand in hand, forerunners and co-workers in the great enterprises of science and civilization!
PRIME MINISTRY’S ATTITUDE.
Premier Venizelos set forth the Government's neutral policy in his speech to Parliament on Sept. 15, (28,) 1914. A translation appears below.