October 4, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
American Influence in the Balkans 
By Lewis R. Freeman 
TJie influence which the returned American Emigrant exer- 
cises in the Halkans -is explained in this article. U'ilh 
America a part of the Alliatice, and taking part in Euro- 
pean affairs, this influence may in time increase enormously. 
11' the Kaiser were as surprised at America's entr\- into 
the war as was his royal brother-in-law King Constantine 
of Grcvce, tliere must indeed liave boen consternation in 
Potsdam last April. For the misguided Tino, whose 
prestige with his own people had been at its zenith in the 
lour months following the discomfiture of the French in their 
attempted coup of the preceding September, the coming in 
of the United States mart^ed a turning point, and from that 
time on things steadily declined until his abdication in June 
brought to an end one of the most disgraceful reigns in the 
whole miserable history of the Balkans. 
That the (ireek Royalists had built high hopes on some 
kind of help from America, there is every indication. I 
arrived in Greece at the end of last March, and before I had 
begun to unpack in my Athens hotel, an ofhcial from the- 
l-oreign Office called to say that he liad been advised from 
Italy- of my intended visit, and that, in pursuance 
with King Constantine's desire to keep the .American 
pulilic informed regarding the motives impelling him to the 
course he had followed in his relations with the Entente, His 
.Majesty was prepared to grant me an interview at some 
mut\iaily convenient time the following week. 
As there was some doubt in my mind as to whether or not 
an inter\iew would be of interest to any of the periodicals 
I represented, I suggested that no definite audience be 
arranged until I had time to cable for instructions. Before I 
had even secured permission from the .Allied Military ("ontrol 
to send the cable, however, word was flashed through that 
America was throwing in her lot with the Entente, and scarcely 
had this information been published when my previous caller 
hurried over to see me again. He was one of the most sur- 
prised and indignant men I have ever met. 
" We didn't expect this \vas going to happen when we 
arranged Avith Hi-^ Majesty to see you," he whined angrily. 
" Tnerc were many things we w.->nt?d to make the Americans 
understand, mxich that we expected to have them do for us 
when thev knew the real facts about the perfidy of \ enizelos 
and his traitors ; and — But what's the use ? It's finished 
for good now." 
A Rare Distinction 
After telling me that there was no longer any reason for 
tlie interview with the King, he stamped out, with a parting 
sneer to the effect that, if America wasn't going to be of any 
lielp to Cireece, there was at least the consolation that she had 
not it in her power to be of any more help to the Allies than 
she had been all along. To the Allied diplomats in Athens 
it had long bc.n known how fully and irretrievably the 
Royalists were committed to Germany, but this was my first 
experience of it, and it was scarcely less staggering than en- 
lightening. .\s a consequence, however, I gained the distinc- 
tion of being the only journalist visiting .Athens in the period 
of Constantine's 'exaltation " following his " victory over 
tlie I'rench," who did 710I have an interview with him. 
Constantine, wliom on the evening of my arrival I had 
Sftpn driving througli the streets and acknowledging the 
greetings of his misguided people with the jauntiest of salutes 
and the gayest of smiles, was one of the most dejected figures 
imaginable on the glad occasion of the Royal Te Deum in the 
Catiiedral on (ireek Independence Day, April 7th. His 
abnormally protuberant forehead was wrinkled in a sullen 
s<-owl throughout tlie whole imposinglv beautiful ceremony, 
and not even the vociferous " Zitos ! " (X'ivas) set going by 
picked ftfoiiP* "f 1''^ liirelings scattered through the crowds 
drew more than the most perfunctory nods from liim or hi'^ 
<<|\ially crestfallen consort on the " triumphal " drive 
bark to the palace. ' , 
At this time partisans of M. \'enizelos were going about 
in fear of their very lives, and the only'individual I came 
across who flared to give any outward expression of the 
renewed hope stirring inwardly as a consequence of the 
action of the United. States was, a man in an obscure street 
who had lashed the Stars and Stripes to the top of his barber's 
jKile. Most of the passers-by doubtless thought that the 
two red, white and blue insignia were intimately related to 
each other, and it wa*; probably lucky for the doughty barber 
that he displayed the Stars and Stripes somewhat " camou- 
flaged.'^ liut when I i)uslied inside to ask him if it was a 
coincidence that the wrinkled bit of bunting was out on the 
same day that America's entry into the war arrived, he made 
no effort to hide his real sentiments. 
" Bet yer life it ain't by chance,", he said stoutly. " I 
cut hair on the ol' Bow'ry fer sev'n years 'fore I beat it back 
to this d d hole. Nope, ain't a 'Merican cit'zen ; but yu 
take it fruni me I'm goin' tu be if they don't fire this hull 
big bunch o' cutthroats — King an' all — out o" Greece on the 
doubl". I brot that flag all the way from lil' ol' Nuyork with 
me. To-day the first time I gets up the nerve tu put it out ; 
but now it ("s out, by , it'll stay ther' till they cum an' 
shoot it down. An' maybe they'll start more'n they're 
lookin' fer if they duz that." 
As the high-handedness of Constantine's agents pro'cocateur 
in Athens steadily declined from the moment of America's 
entry into the arena, 1 should not be surprised if that saucy 
bit of red, white and blue- bunting were still flapping from its 
queer flag-pole when \>nizelos returned in triumph to the 
Greek capital three months later 
Returned Emigrants 
One meets many returned emigrants from America in all 
parts of Greece^— as everywhere else in the Balkans — and it 
is an interesting fact that every one of those whom I en- 
countered at this crucial epoch in Hellenic history was a 
most staunch ^'enizelist and intensely bitter against Con- 
stantine and the whole Royalist regime. A family who gave 
me shelter for a couple of days in a little village on the slopes- 
of Mt. Olympus, in the course of my precarious journey by 
land from Old Greece to Salonika, furnished a fair example 
of the discriminating attitude adopted by even the most 
ignorant of these as a consequence of their " spell of freedom " 
across the water. Five brothers of this patriarchal estab- 
lishment had spent from four to eight years apiece working 
in the mines and smelters of the Western States, and all of 
them had eventually returned to invest their " fortunes" in 
sheep and goats and to become " leading citizens " of the 
cliff-begirt little Olympian village of Leptacara. 
The eldest brother had erected a small cafe and rest-house at 
the temporary tepninus of the railway line, which he had 
named " Hotel Taconia," in honour of a inore pretentious 
hostelry in the last town he had worked at in Washington. 
He celebrated the arrival of the first " reel 'Mer'can" the 
village had ever known by " shouting the house " in true 
Western mining camp fashion. .After everyone — shepherds, 
fishermen, section-hands, the station agent and two soldiers 
in Royalist uniform — had been provided with a glass of 
mastic' he proposed the toast to " Pretty soon 'Merica come 
fight for (ireece." Then I stood a round to " Pretty soon 
come yhck Venizelos," which a second one of the returned 
brothers followed with " T'ell wi' Constantino!" The 
last toast was so popular that it would undoubtedly have 
b«en drunk repeatedly had not the end of the mastic put a 
period to the international amenities. 
Grimh' tragic was another occasion on which I heard a 
returned Grtfco-American curse his traitor king with what 
must have been not many removes from his dying breath. 
It was toward the middle of last June that I entered Janina 
on the heels of the Italian .Army, to find the people of the 
loveliest of all Epirus cities in the last stages of starvation. 
The rich valleys above and below the town had produced food 
enough to feed its 20,000 inhabitants four or five times over, 
but the Royalists, in provisioning Athens against the punitive 
blockade of the .Allies, had transported to the capital all the 
com they could lay hands on. The inevitable sequel was one 
of the saddest of the war, and I must confess that 1 have 
been scarcely more stirred by the streams of wounded draining 
back from X'erdun and the Somme than by the sight of the 
ghastly dead and dying— men, women and children— lying 
indiscriminately on the sun-hot cobbles of the streets of Janina 
and in the shade of its incomparable plane trees. 
It was just at the edge of the public square that my car 
was brought up sharp to avoid running over a poor fellow 
who had collapsed in a heap while trying to wheel out of the 
way a push-barrow on which were stretched the emaciated 
corpses of a man and woman. He dragged himself to his 
knees by clawing up the smoking radiator of the big Fiat, 
and — noting that my uniform was different from that of the 
Italian oflicer at m>- side— asked if I spoke English. \\ hen I 
jumjx'd out, lifted him to his feet and told him that I was 
an American, he almost choked with excitement. 
" I was contractor — Cheyenne, Wyoming — f'r ten yeais," 
