The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1918-09-14
(FOURTH INSTALLMENT.)
Germanizing the Greek Court.


Summing up the case of Zita, prob
ably this somewhere near the
truth: F." more pro-Ally than pro-
German, she is nevertheless staunch
for the land of her adoption, Austria
She sees t,2;s land laid op1n as the
war progr .sSes, to all the ignominy
heaped by civilization on to the head
of Germany. Yet the Austrians are
not GeTmans-0ne cannot really re-
call single case Of Austrian outrage
such as the rope CT Belgium, the muir
der of Nurse Cavell, the Lusitania,
the sudden introduction of gas, or the
senseless bomb murder of non-com-
batants. Austria has fought a COM
paratively clean war, and Zita may
have had something to do with that
in which, be it said, she would find
herself backed up by large numbers
of the most influential people in The
Dual Monarchy. This is not treach-
cry; rather a fearless and far-sightad
regard for the future of her husbands
country. Zita wants this conflict to
! end IS quickly as possible, before the
introduction of new denominations by
Germany should still further con-
taminate the name of Austria: cos
mopolitan herself, she does not desire
her adopted people to be the social
outcasts Germans are going to be for
generations.
No record Of the Vaccinations of
the roya2 marriage mart is complete
without reference to ex-Queen Sophie
Of Or zee, he Kaiser's sister. This
German woman has possibly infiu-
encod The war, adversely for the Al
lies, even more acutelys than did her
cousin, the Czarfna. To- say that
this "palid, dainty womafb altogether
charming and of seductive voice, gift
ed with brain and will, and yet
the simplest housewife" has altered
the whole trend of the war against
TURKEY and in The balkans, is to state
what is nothing less than the bare
fact This woman built up a structure
of intrigue and treachery around her
at Athens of corruption and usurpa-
tioA without parallel in the history
of nations. And all to serve one end
the Ka;ser's. Totally alien to the
Greek temperament, having nothing
whatever in common with the Hel-
enc outlook, she received her call,
in the royal marriage mart, in the
carly nineties, proceeding to Athens
as Duchess Of Sparta. Greece was
then being run by a Dane. The
king business! Sophia Dorothea VI
RIGA, now bordering on fifty, soon set
about cuitivating a German atmos-
phere in The Creek capital In the
palace she surrounded herself with
i German women and got her husband
keeniy absorbed in German militar-
ism, so much so that soon the Greek
Army was being modelled on that of
the Fatherland. Col. Strategos, the
Chief of Staff, was constantly in Ber-
lin. German commerce and finance
was encouraged in every way;
dreadnaught, for Greece was built in
Germany. In 1897 this damnable
agent of the kaiser had the effront-
cry to telegraph to Berlin in this
strain when invited to the centenary
celebration of Kaiser William l.:
"a sore conflict endures within me,
weak woman that !" am. l am set
between the opposing calls of my an
cestral family and my new father
land. l dare not leave Greece, toward
which have devoted my whole being,
in her present tragic plight Greece
Turkish war;" 1
| Weak woman
This was the woman to whom the
kaiser gave, the same year, the Or
der Of Louise, the highest Prussian
honor for work done by woman in
war. The woman who, deeply re-
ligious, maybe, did not hesitate to
deal directly with the prostitutes of
Athens in order to further certain es-
pionage work in hand for Berlin. In
the Balkan wars leading up to Arma-
gcddon Sophie, of course, emerged as
the usual royal heroine, the inspirer
of every war charity, an angel of the
Red Cross, forever making patriotic
appeals, &C., &C., ad nauseam. Mean
while, her imperial brother entered
into occupation of what may be
termed advanced Greek headquarters,
at Corfu, just next door. Sophie was
constantly visitor there. Becoming
queen on the convenient murder of
pro-English King George at Salonica