The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-02-09
vENIzEL0S ENVOY SEES GLORY FOR
 GRECIAN PEOPLES
Attributes Kings Attitude to Lack of Team Work by
 Entente Nations.

Paris, Feb. 9-Eustrate Athanas- siades, a Greek litterateur and a friend and lieutenant of M. Venizelos who has come to France on 9 confi- dential mission from that leader quite recently escaped from what would assuredly have been unpleasant ex- periences when denounced by the po-
 lice of Athens as a friend of M. Veni- zelos. His papers were seized and his apartment ransacked by the po- lice, but. as nothing was found
 against him, he was permitted to go free on condition that he did not | leave Athens. M. Athanassiades
 however, immediately laid his plans
 to leave the capital, and was able to
 do so with some difficulty.
 M Athanassiades, who is a native Of Mitylene, has great hopes for the future of Greece and for the role
 which she will eventually play ill the fight for liberty and civilization. The
 Greek people have great vitality;
 they know their privileges and their
 duties and they wish to pursue their destinies in the only logical way pos sible in view of their great past.
 Blames Entente y.W kness.
 If they have not doxe so before,'' said this representative Greek gen. tleman, with emphasis, it is on ac- count of the weakness and the lack of method shown by the Entente
 Powers in. their dealings with the Bal
 kan peoples. The Germans were prompter in their acts, and they have really accomplished miracles; not by force of character or by the justice nf hpf hI1t hxy hn1 Ia ruption. Their agents have been
 working strenuously in the country since the outbreak of the war.
 Before this war there were no
 Germanophiles. There are none to-, day among the educated and cultivat-
 ed people in Greece. Those who sympathize more or less with the
 Germans are either such as have been
 corrupted, or the purely ignorant who are impressed by the force of Ger
 many. All the youth who followed their later studies in Germany-and
 they are the majority of young peo-
 ple-are against Germany, realizing as they do that, though her power is
 or has been great, she is on a degen-
 crate path through her methods. "So the young people of Greece are all pro-Entente. and there has never
 been anything in the nature of anil
 mostly against France and England. Friendship for these two countries is
 traditional in Greece. As a matter of fact,I, who am very Francophile,
 and have spent a number of years in France, have been surprised at the
 almost unanimous love for France and Great Britain that exists among the cultured classes. It is shown par- ticularly in a literary and political so- ciety recently founded at Athens, to which members, every one enthusi- astically pro-Entente, Hooked in great
 numbers" II M Athanassiades added that the trouble all along had been caused by the errors of the Entente powers, which had exasperated the people. In the early stages of the war they courted the favor of Bulgaria. to the detriment of Creek interests. They made mistakes when troubles arose. and there were plots against the Entente. of attacking and removing small and insignificant people-employers and trades peop1e-instead of finding out the real causes of the mischief, who were in highly placed positions. There had never been agreement of cohesion
 
 powers in Athens, he added, for al the very moment that the Entente diplomats were presenting their ulti- matum to the King one of their num- I Der was inviting him to dinner.
 Il Prompted Kings Hesitations.
 sThe King in his hesitations. and I in his attempt to play off one side against the other. has acted the role that Abdul Hamid played in his time;, and he has been encouraged by the l evident lack of cohesion among the
 Entente powers continued M Athan- assiades. "His leading motive hAs I been his jealousy of the popularity of M Venizelos. He gained the sympa-
 thy of many of the people by his de- claration that he would obtain for the
 country all that Greek national as- pirations could desire without taking
 up arms; and, tiged as they were from
 two terrible wars they were inclined
 to listen to him.
 "M Venizelos avoided all oppor-
 tunities to gain popularity or to pro- yoke demonstrations in his own favor
 and the charges brought against him of his being antagonistic to the King are utterly unfounded. Some of M.
 Venizelos' best friends think he. has taken the King too much into account and that he ought long ago to have ; adopted stranger measures as the un-
 doubted representative of national -as-
 pirations.
 | "M Venizelos has had great forces | of opposition to contend against, for of course all the partisans of Goun- ouris, of Rallys, and other enemies of his opposed his efforts. The mayor | of Athens organized bands to take the side of the Reservists against the Venizelists; and today the whole | press except a few Royalist organs subsidized by the Germans, has been | suppressed; those that remain print only what is dictated to them, and this is a very grave state of affairs"