October 4, igi; 
LANU & WATER 
American Influence in the Balkans 
By Lewis R. Freeman 
The influence -it-Inch the returned American Emigrant exer- 
cises in the Balkans is explained in this article. With 
America a pari of the Alliance, and taking part in Euro- 
pean affairs, this influence may in time increase enormously. 
IV the Kaiser were as surprised at America's entry into 
the war as was his royal brother-in-law King Constantine 
of Grei'ce. thf're must indeed have been consternation in 
Potsdam last April. l'"or the misguided Tino. whose 
prestige with his own people had been at its zenith in the 
four months following the discomfitvire of the French in their 
attempted coup of the preceding September, the coming in 
of the United States marked 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 Greek Royalists had. built high hopes on some 
kind of helj) 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 official from the 
Foreign Office called to say that he had been a4vised from 
Italy of my intended visit, and that, in pursuance 
with King Constantine's desire to keep the American 
public informed regarding the moti\e's impelling him to the 
course he had followed in his relations with the Entente, His 
Majestv was prepared to grant me an interview at some 
mutually convenient time the following week. 
As there was some doubt in my mind as to whether or not 
an interview would be of interest to any of the periodicals 
I represented. I suggested that no definite audience be 
aiTanged until I had time to cable for instructions. Before I 
had even secured permission from the .\llied Military Control 
to send the cable, however, word was flashed through that 
America was throwing in hj-r lot v»ith the Entente, and scarcel\' 
had this information been published when my previous caller 
hurried <jver to see me again. He was one of the most sur- 
prised and indignant men I have ever met. 
" W'e didn't expect this was going to happen when we 
arranged with His Majesty to see you," he whined angrily. 
" There were many things we wanted to make the Americans 
understand, much that we expected to have them do for us 
when they knew the real (acts about the perfidy of \'enizelos 
and Miis traitors ; and — But what's the use ? It's finished 
for good now." > 
A Rare Distinction 
After telling me that there was no longer anV reason for 
the interview with the King, he stamped out, w-ith a parting 
sneer to the effect that, if America wasn't going to be of any 
help to Greece, there was at least the consolation that she had 
not it in her power to be of any more help to the Allies than 
slie had been alt along. To the Allied diplomats in Athens 
it had long been known how fully and inetrievably Ihe 
Royalists were committed to Germany, but this was my hrst 
• ex|)eriencc of it, and it was scarcely less staggering than en- 
lightening. As 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 
the I'rench," who did not have an interview with him. 
Constantine, whom on the evening of my arrival I had 
seen driving through the streets and acknowledging the 
greetings of his misguided people with the jauntiest oi 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 
Cathedral on Greek Independence Day, .^pril'yth. His 
abnonnallv protuberant forehea<l was wrinkled in a sullen 
.scowl throughout the whole imposingly beautiful ceremony, 
and not even the vociferous " Zitos ' " (Vivas) set going by 
picked groups of his hirelings scattered through the crowds 
drew more than the most jXTfunctory nods from film or his 
c(|uaily crestfallen consort on the " triiunplial " drive 
back to the palace. 
At this time partisan* f)f M. \'cnizelos were going about 
in fear of their very lives, and the only individual 1 came 
across who dared to give any outward expression of the 
renewed hope stirring inwardly as a consequence of the 
action of the United States w-as a man in an obscure street 
who had lashed the-Stars and Stripes fo the top of his barber's 
pct\v. Most of the passers-by doubtless thought that the 
two red, white and blue insignia were intimately related to 
each other, and it was probalily lucky for the doughty barber 
that h' displayed the Stars and Stripe? somewhat " camou- 
flaged. ' BuI'wIku 1 pusiicd inside to ask him if it was a 
coincidence that the wrinkled bit of bunting was out on the 
same day that .\merica's entry into the war arrived, he made 
no efiort to hide his real sentiments. 
■' Bet yer life it ain't by chance, " he said stoutly. " I 
cut hair on the ol' Bow'ry far sev'n years 'fore I beat it back 
to this d d hole. Nope, ain't a 'Merican cit'zen ; but jai 
take it frum 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 wHth 
me. To-day the first time I gets up the nerve tu put it out ; 
but now it is out, by , it'll stay ther' till they cum an' 
shofjt it down. An' maybe they'll start more'n they're 
lookin' ier if they duz that." 
As the high-handedness of Constantine's agents provocateur 
in Athens steadily declined from the moment of America's 
entry into the arena. I sho\jld not be surprised if that saucv 
bit of red. white and blue bimting were still flapping from its 
queer flag-pole when \'enizelos returned in triumph to the 
(ireek capital three months later. 
Returned Emigrants 
One meets many returned emigrants from America in all 
parts of Cireece — 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 s[)ent 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" xn 
sheep and goats and to become "leading citizens" of the 
cliff-begirt little Olympian village of Leptac.ara. 
The eldest brother had erected a small cafe and rest-house at 
the temporary terminus of the railway line, which he had 
named " Hotel Tacoma," in honour of a more 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 km)wn'by "shouting the house" in true 
Western mining camp fashion. .After everyone — shepherds, 
fishermen, section-hanils, the station agent and two .soldiers 
in Royalist ifniform -had been provided with a glass of 
mastic, he proposed the toast to " Pretty soon 'Merica come 
fight for Greece." Then I stood a round to " Pretty soon" 
come back ^'enizelos," which a second one of the returned 
■brothers followed with " Tell wi' Con.stantino ! " The 
la?t toast was so popular that it would undoubtedly have 
been drunk repeatedly had not the end of the mastic piit*a 
period to the international amenities. 
Grimly tragic was anot her v occasion on which I heard a 
returned (irwco-.\merican curse his traitor king w-ith^what 
must ha\e been not many removes from his dying breath. 
It was toward the middle of last June that I entered J ailina 
on the heels of the Italian Army, to find the people of the 
loveliest of all Epirus cities in the last stages of star\>a-tion. 
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, iii provisioning Athens against- the punitive 
blockade of the .Allies, had transported to the capitalall the 
corn they could lay hands on. The inevitable sequel was one 
of the saddest of the war, and I must confess that I have 
been scarcely more stirred by the streams of wounded draining 
back from V'^rdun and the Somme than by the sight of the 
ghastly dead and dyiiig -men, women and childn-n- lying 
indiscriminateh' on the sim-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 a\-oid 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 tf) his 
knees by clawing \ip the smoking radiator of the big Fiat, 
and — noting that m>' uniform was diffejent from that of tfie 
Italian officer at my side— asked if I spoke English, \\hen' I 
jumped out, lifted him to his feet and told him that I was 
an .American, he almost choked with excitement. 
" I. was contractor— Cheyciuic, Wyoming — f'rten years," 
