New Britain herald., 1915-12-17
GREECE HAS STRONG
 MILITARY TRADITION
Gen. DouSmaniS Real Military
 Genius Of Country
Correspondence of the Associated Press>

Correspondence of, the Associated Press,
 Athens, Greece, Nov. 30.-Should Greece enter the European war arena some interesting military figures will he added to those already in the mar tlal. llmelight, for Greece has seen quite a few wars since" the middle nineties-indeed, she has seen little else, and there has grown up among a certain class of the Greek people a strong military tradition.
 To the average Greek the great military figures of his country is Con- stantine. l., the King of the Greeks. But his greatness rests rather on the tenacity and enthusiasm with which he has constantly kept at the bus,- ness of building up a Greek army and the personal courage with which he has taken the active command of his country's troops in the last two successful wars. That he is a mili- tary genius in any sense, none of the real military men of the country pre- tend. The real military genius of Greece in the as yet merely Balkan sphere of his activities, is General Victor Dousmanis, General of Bri- gade, Chief of the General Staff Of Greece. In Greece only the king is field marshal-and Constantine l. is
 
 of Prussia as we'll.
 Has Made Rapid Strides.
 For his age, General Dousmanis has made rapid strides to arrive at the supreme effective command of. the army of 66,0O0 men in time of peace and, roughly, 35O,O0O men in time of war. He was born on August 20, Greek calendar-Septembe 2, our
 
 fu, He has been professional soldier all his life, graduating from the mil itary school and entering the regular army at once as a second lieutenant in 1883, where he had a rapid rise in the engineering branch of the ser i vice.
 When the disastrous war with T,1r key was undertaken in 1897, Dous- manls had already been a captain seven years He was attached to the General staff of the then Crow, Prince, now the King. As much be- low medium stature as the king is above average height, as dark as the king is blonde, as silent and unsmil ing as the king is expansive and . genial, the two were in great con- : trast, though General Dousmanis is seven years older than his sovereign, IuIOuS IOuC IIlaI war ana the long years that followed in which Prince Constantine planned and effected the regeneration of the Greek army. Dousmanis was his right hand man. They shared and still share the same admiration foror belief in the Prus- sian system, and despite the training of the Greek army as whole by 9 French military mission, King Con- stantine and his chief of staff have succeeded in putting upon the officers of the army thoroughly Prussian stamp.
 Chief of General Staff During the successful war against the Ottoman empire in 1912 the then L1eutenant-Colonel Dousmanis was again attached to the staff of Crown prince Constantine and when the lat ter became king he was made chief Of the general staff, a post which he held through the war against Bulgar- ia and has held since Tn addition, he was also his sovereigns aide-dc-
 camp in the war and he tells a story which the king himself confirms that the two were with the young crown Prince George watching the battle ot kllklch from behind cemetery wall