

GREECE. 



409 



by drawings at par. The interest, at 5 per 

 cent., was to begin on January 1, 1879, and to 

 be payable half-yearly. 



According to the law for 1878, enacted in 

 the latter part of 1877 by the Chamber, the 

 Greek army is now composed of 28,000 men 

 16,288 infantry, 4,044 light infantry, 2,008 

 gendarmes, 852 cavalry, 2,013 artillery, 1,107 

 sappers and miners, 300 men attached to the 

 hospitals, and a number of officers and sergeants 

 on special service. The annual expense for the 

 maintenance of the army is estimated at 20,000,- 

 000 francs. 



RUINS OP THE PBOPYUEA, ATHENS. 



After recalling its troops from Thessaly, the 

 Government, continued still to act under the 

 recognition of the fact that the situation was 

 critical, and actively continued its military and 

 naval preparations. Orders were given for 

 arms and ammunition sufficient for an army 

 of 50,000 men, and arrangements were made 

 to raise the Mobile National Guard to 140,000 

 men. The people sulkily accepted the news 

 of the Government's acquiescence in the ar- 

 rangement proposed by the great Powers for 

 abstention from hostilities, and reliance on 

 their good offices to see that justice was done 

 the Greek peoples, but were evidently not 

 content with it. The news that the British 

 squadron had been refused admission to the 

 Bosporus by the Porte created a new excite- 

 ment in Athens, and the expectation which it 

 aroused of a new political and military situa- 

 tion, in which Greece and England might be 

 found on the same side, did much to reconcile 

 those who had denounced the recall of the 

 troops from Thessaly, and to keep within 

 bounds the indignation with which the news 

 of the massacres at the frontier was received. 

 The excitement was renewed early in April on 

 the occasion of the capture of the Thessalian 

 insurgent position at Macrinitza, and the irrup- 

 tion into Valo, in which several rayahs and 



Europeans were murdered. Among the vic- 

 tims of this affair was Mr. Ogle, a correspond- 

 ent of the London " Times," whose murder 

 and mutilation were made subjects of action 

 by the British Government. A reward was 

 offered for the recovery of his body, and it was 

 found in a mutilated condition on Mount Pe- 

 lion. Mr. Fawcett, who was sent to Valo to 

 inquire into the occurrence, made a report on 

 May 8th, in which he expressed the opinion 

 that Mr. Ogle was killed by a gunshot or bay- 

 onet while retreating with the Greek insur- 

 gents, and that his head was afterward cut off 

 by Turkish soldiers. 



An angry feeling was caused in many circles 

 throughout the country by the results of the 

 Congress at Berlin, which had failed to secure 

 to Greece any advantages proportioned to the 

 expectations that had been raised. Every step 

 of the negotiations in which the Government 

 sought to have actually adjusted the rectifica- 

 tion of boundaries which the treaty stipulated 

 for, was watched with solicitude. The nego- 

 tiations on the subject made very slow progress, 

 and it was not till the 8th of August that the 

 Turkish Government drew up its circular on 

 the demand of the Greeks, and it was nearly 

 three weeks later before the circular was pub- 

 lished. The dispatch declared in the outset, 

 in the most formal manner, that neither the 

 Sultan nor his Government had ever had to 

 deliberate on such a project as the proposed 

 rectification of the Greek frontier, and that it 

 was for the first time called on to consider it 

 when the project came to light within the Con- 

 gress. Reviewing in its particulars the de- 

 mand made by the Greeks before the Berlin 

 Congress, it said : 



That demand consists in the annexation, pure and 

 simple, of Epirus, Thessaly, and the isle of Crete, 

 to the kingdom of Greece, and is justified, according 

 to the Hellenic Ministry, by arguments and consid- 

 erations which may be thus summed up : " Greece 

 aspires to unite under the same government all the 

 countries inhabited by populations of Greek origin ; 

 but she acknowledges the necessity for the present 

 of limiting her desires to the annexation of Candia 

 and the provinces bordering on the kingdom, in 

 order to respond to the desires of Europe. The 

 annexation has from all time been the deforest wish 

 of those provinces, which, have often expressed it by 

 taking up arms. Satisfaction given to this desire 

 would be an act of justice and humanity which would 

 complete the pacificating work of Europe, and would 

 thus render impossible the return of the troubles 

 periodically agitating these countries. Greece, which 

 has all along experienced the rebound of these trou- 

 bles, and which exhausts herself in armaments 

 grounded on this abnormal situation, and in expen- 

 diture caused by the necessity of according succor 

 to the refugees of the insurgent provinces, and to 

 the repatriated combatants, might thenceforth de- 

 vote her resources to the material development of 

 the country. Turkey herself would gain in secu- 

 rity, and the relations of neighborliness which would 

 be established between the two countries would run 

 no further risk of being disturbed. The rejection 

 of the wishes of Greece would infallibly lead to a 

 general conflagration in those countries, in which 

 the Hellenic people would be led to take part, what- 

 ever the efforts of its rulers to prevent it." 



