GREECE. 



375 



march into the border provinces on the melt- 

 ing of the snow. The belligerent sentiment 

 was stronger in the country districts than at 

 Athens. 



The Chamber resumed its sessions after the 

 holiday recess in the first week of February. 

 The Opposition leader, Trikoupis, stormed the 

 ministry with questions regarding the diplo- 

 matic negotiations, the military preparations, 

 etc. The Opposition had been re-enforced by 

 several seceders from the ranks of the minis- 

 terialists. The more moderate and pacific tone 

 which Coumoundouros had lately taken, under 

 the influence of foreign diplomatists, was prej- 

 ndicial to his popularity. The Minister of 

 Finance, Sotiropoulos, had sent in his resigna- 

 tion upon the rejection by the budget com- 

 mittee and a Cabinet council of a proposition 

 to substitute a land-tax for the tax on live 

 animals, but remained in office at the solicita- 

 tion of his colleagues and the King. 



The Greek army mustered not more than 

 7,000 men in the middle of 1880, before prepa- 

 rations began for a war with Turkey. Before 

 the end of the year there were twenty -three 

 battalions of infantry ready to march, contain- 

 ing 28,750 men, and a rifle corps of 9,600 men, 

 besides two regiments of cavalry, sixteen bat- 

 teries of artillery, and three engineer battalions, 

 giving a total fighting strength of 44,830 men, 

 not counting 4,000 gendarmes, 4,000 non-com- 

 batants, and 9,000 reserves. The discipline 

 and efficiency of the Greek army were astonish- 

 ing, considering the brief period of training it 

 had. The Greeks boasted that they could 

 throw 60,000 men into the border provinces. 

 Turkey had, meantime, been arranging her 

 finances and organizing her army for defense, 

 and claimed to have ready 60,000 troops to 

 hold the Thessalian plain, and 40,000, besides 

 the local Arnaut irregulars, for the protection 

 of Epirus. The actual Turkish garrisons in the 

 provinces at the beginning of the year were 

 only about one quarter as strong, being some 

 11,200 men of all arms in Epirus, and proba- 

 bly a slightly stronger force in Tbessaly. 



In the beginning of March, just before the 

 opening of the conference in Constantinople, 

 war material was landed at Volo, and prepara- 

 tions were made for a strong defense of Thes- 

 saly in case the Greeks crossed the border. 

 No such precautions were necessary for the 

 defense of Epirus. The Greek Thessalians 

 were quiet, but there was no doubt that they 

 would rise in a mass at the first approach of 

 the Greek battalions. The Turkish troops in 

 Thessaly had been increased to 29,700, with 

 42,000 more ready to march at the first call. 

 Every menacing move on the part of Greece 

 was met by counter-preparations as effective. 

 The Greek Government issued an order calling 

 out the National Guard on the 7th of Febru- 

 ary. When mustered at Athens they displayed 

 great enthusiasm. 



Strategical considerations had much weight 

 with the Porte to deter it from granting terri- 



torial cessions, except under extreme outside 

 pressure, to the despised Greek nation. If it 

 parted with Mezzovo, in the Pindus, it would 

 relinquish an important military point, which 

 commands not only the whole of Epirus, but 

 Southern Albania as well. If Larissa were 

 given up, one of the most important provinces 

 of the southwestern Balkan region would lie at 

 the mercy of an invading army. Janina was 

 the most important strategic position of all. 

 Macedonia would remain to Turkey, but, shut 

 in between the enlarged Greece and Bulgaria, 

 with a preponderant Bulgarian population, and 

 with Austria reaching out to acquire the Sa- 

 lonica Eailway line, which extends through the 

 length of the province, it also seemed to be 

 doomed if Thessaly and Epirus were given up. 



The Treaty of Berlin fixed the two extrem- 

 ities of the new boundary -line at the mouths 

 of the Kalamos and the Salambria Rivers, and 

 directed that it should follow the general 

 course of the two valleys. The after-confer- 

 ence settled on a line with curves, extending 

 northward of a straight line between the two 

 points, and giving to Greece Larissa, Janina, 

 and Mezzovo. The Porte insisted on retaining 

 these places, at the conclusion of the Berlin 

 Conference, but appeared to be reconciled later 

 to the cession of Larissa. 



Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, the French Min- 

 ister for Foreign Affairs, dispatched about the 

 beginning of the year a circular note to French 

 representatives at European courts, in which 

 he appealed to foreign cabinets, and to the 

 Greek Government and the Porte, to have the 

 Greek boundary dispute referred to the arbi- 

 tration of the European powers. He pictured 

 the dangers of a conflict between Greece and 

 Turkey in terms more earnest and graphic than 

 are customary in diplomatic documents. The 

 slumbering passions and ambitions of the other 

 races of European Turkey would be kindled by 

 the example of Greece, and the whole Balkan 

 Peninsula would soon be aflame with war. 

 Europe would be obliged to intervene, and the 

 resulting complications would involve the con- 

 tinent in the horrors and devastations of a 

 general European war. The claims of Greece 

 to the enforcement by the powers of the de- 

 limitation of the boundary proposed at the 

 Berlin Conference, the French minister de- 

 nied. The powers agreed in the Berlin Treaty 

 to intermediate for the settlement of the bound- 

 ary between Turkey and Greece, if invited. 

 When Turkey and Greece had failed to come 

 to an agreement at Prevesa and at Constanti- 

 nople, in 1879, the intermediation of the pow- 

 ers was appealed to, and their engagement 

 was discharged by the conference at Berlin in 

 1880, at which a boundary-line was recom- 

 mended to the disputants to serve as a basis 

 for specific negotiations. Greece accepted the 

 counsel of the mediators, but Turkey rejected 

 their proposals, which she was entirely free to 

 do. The French note was dated December 24, 

 1880. 



