12 
LAND & WATER 
October 5, igi6 
Intrigues at Athens 
By Colonel A. M. Murray, G.B., 
THE departure of M. Venizelos from Athens at 
the beginning of last week was the signal for a 
Revolution to which the friends of Greece — and 
in spite of her misfortunes, she still has many- 
looked to rescue her from the position in which she 
has been placed by the foolish conduct of her King. 
Never before has a country with any pretence to 
independence, drunk so deeply of the cup of humiliation, 
or been treated with such wholesale contempt by friends 
and foes alike. 
" I go about London," said a prominent member of the 
Greek community a few dctys ago, " feehng as though 
I had been kicked." 
King Constantine 
The King, and the King alone, is responsible for this 
deplorable situation, and it is time to say so. Bra\e 
in the field he has shown himself to be morally 
incapable of giving a political lead to his people in. this 
great crisis of their national history. His illness must 
have weakened his nerves, for he is not the man he was 
three years ago, and he can no longer see straight or 
act right. Those who have seen him at the head of his 
men would not recognise him as the same man in the 
Council Chamber. As a soldier he is strong ancl virile ; 
as a politician, weak, hesitating, and obstinate. 
No one could have treated him more gently and 
considerately than M. Venizelos, yet the King twice, 
threw his Minister to the wolves after twice promisint; 
to support him. Surrounded by men who are as incapable 
as they are corrupt — the_ adjective is used advisedly — 
the^ King has allowed them to persuade himself against 
his better judgment to trample on the constitution, not 
to save his people, but to betray them. A more shame- 
ful repudiation of an honourable obligation was never 
perpetrated by a monarch when King Constantine refused 
to go to the help of his Ally, because forsooth he was 
attacked, not by one enemy, but by three. His Majesty 
is an admirer of Eton, and told the writer in conversa- 
tion he would like to have had one of his sons there. What 
would Eton say to one of her sons who agreed to stand 
by his friend if he was bullied, and then sneaked out of 
his agreement because three bulHes came along instead 
of one ? Yet this is how King Constantine behaved to 
King Peter, and in so doing covered his throne with 
mud, and dragged his people into the gutter. 
Where the King of Greece has gone wrong is, not in 
his private sympathies, which we all respect, but in his 
public conduct, which we deplore. We must be just 
to him. In his younger days, by the favour of the present 
German Emperor's father, he was an officer of the 
Prussian Guard, and to-day he is a Field-Marshal in the 
German Army. For six years he served in the 2n(l 
Regiment of Foot Guards, and afterwards was a student 
at the Berlin Staff College. All he knows about war li(> 
learnt in Germany, and he would not be human if he did 
not feel well disposed towards those whose teaching enabled 
him to lead the Greek Army to victory during the wars 
wdth Turkey and Bulgaria. When he visited Berlin 
in the winter of 1913, and the German Emperor presented 
him with his baton of Field-Marshal, he thanked him 
for the honour conferred on him in the following words : 
I do not hesitate to proclaim once more loudly and in 
public that next to the invincible courage of my Greeks, 
we have to thank for our victories the principles of war, 
and the conduct of war, which I and my officers have 
made my own here in Berlin in company with my dear 
2nd Regiment of Foot Guards, at the Staff College, and in 
our intercourse with the Prussian General Staff. I thank 
the great Emperor, William I., of blessed memory, for 
graciously allowing me, through a course of precious 
months, the opportunity of acquiring here with the 
troops, and at the Staff College, the military knowledge 
which subsequently brought me such brilliant successes. 
This speech gave great offence to General Eydoux, who 
was Head of the ]\Iilitary Mission which the French 
Government lent to King Constantine to reorganise his 
army, and who, by his untiring efforts, had done much 
more than the King himself to prepare the Greek army 
for war. With the consent of the French Government 
the General tendered his resignation to M. Venizelos, 
and was only persuaded to withdraw it on the Minister's 
assurance that he would obtain from the King a declar- 
ation that no slur was intended to be cast on the work 
of the Mission, and that it retained the full confidence 
of the King and his Government. Apart from the 
indiscretion of the speech, to which publicity ought 
never to have been given, we can hardly be surprised 
.at what the King said, for early associations, and especially 
regimental associations, cling through life, and it was 
not unnatural that in the hey-day of his military triumph 
the King should have recalled with pleasure the happy 
days spent with his Prussian Regiment. 
Then again, the King's marriage with the Emperor's 
sister had a good deal to say in the matter, and it would 
have been strange if it had been otherwise. Letters have 
passed almost daily during the war between brother and 
sister, and the Emperor is not the man to cry "stinking 
fish." On the contrary, he is certain to have informed 
his brother-in-law of what was in store for Serbia, and 
no doubt warned him against fighting on the side of his 
Ally. Private letters otight, of course, not to have 
deterred the King from his public duty, but the fact 
remains that the two men, Emperor and King, were 
in constant communication, and at that time the Em- 
peror was able to support his warnings with the continuous 
record of successes gained by the German Armies 
Outspoken Blame 
Having said so much on behalf of the King what 
remains to be said must be outspoken and uncompromisihg 
blame. None of us, not even the humblest, should allow 
their private sympathies to stand in the way of their 
public duty, and this is where the King has gone wrong. 
He has backed the wrong horse, but that is a small part 
of the mistakes which he has made. Knowing that the 
chiefs of the army have sworn obedience to his orders 
he has made use of their loyalty to defy his people, 
setting up his will against theirs, and he has done this 
openly, admittedly, arrogantly, in spite of the earnest 
protests of the Minister who put him on the throne, and 
of the friendly remonstrances of the Protecting Powers. 
Matters have drifted too long. There is only one thing 
to do, and the sooner it is done the better both for the 
King and for his country. We must say to King Con- 
stantine, not as threateners, but as friends and pro- 
tectors, that there are two courses open to him, either 
to restore the Constitution, which he has illegally sus- 
pended, or make way for some one who will do so. .The 
message which M. Gambetta delivered to Marshal 
MacMahon on a memorable occasion when France was 
threatened with a dictatorship is the message which 
befits the present occasion. II faut se soumettre ou se 
derncttre. 
In spite of his pro-German family sympathies, it would 
be incorrect to suppose that the King has any anti- 
Entente prejudices. The writer has the best authority 
for this statement, for when he was at Athens during 
the spring of 1914 he had the honour of meeting the 
King, and was much impressed by His Majesty's appre- 
ciation of England and all things English." He was 
momentarily irritated, as he had a right to be, on account 
of the casting vote which our foreign Office had ignorantly 
given in regard to the partition of Northern Epirus, but 
the British decision, which led to another civil war, 
in no way detracted from the King's admiration of our 
public school and University life, and of the free in- 
stitutions under which we lived. Speaking English with 
the same ease and fluency as an Englishman, the im- 
pression which he left on the writer's mind was that he 
might have Jbeen talking to an English country gentleman 
instead of to a foreign Monarch. His genuine spirit of 
friendliness is an asset which under skilful direction 
