Arizona republican., 1920-11-15
Greece: The Ne1v Na- tion of An Old People

terest once more to southeastern Eu- rope. The changes Greece has under gone territorially and the part it has played in the wars and crises of it's corner of the world are discussed in the following bulletin issued by the | National Geographic society:
 What is Greece?
 Tn the light of the past the answer might well be tentative, for a defini- tio nof Greece's area at any time dur l ing the thousands of years of its his tory would have held good hardly for a quarter century; and in latter years, so swift have been the changes in New | Greece, each decade has seen the fix | ing of new boundaries.
 Greece "A Sea Surrounded by Land" Not until modern times, except dur ing the momentary empire of Alex i ander, has Greece meant a nation. In the Grecian golden age as well as
 before and since, Greece was a house l divided against itself. Its detailed his tory would mean the history of more than 150 separate states. And yet there was at all times some feeling of Hellenic nationality even though the rivalries among the various groups
 stood in the way of fusion into a sin
 gle nation.
 While Great Britain may be de-
 scribed as a land surrounded by seas.
 Greece may be said to be sea sur
 rounded by land The Hellenes have
 always been a seafaring folk and the
 mediterranean sea. and more particu-
 larly the Aegean, have been their own
 particular herring ponds.' The islands
 of the eastern Mediterranean became
 Greek territory in their entiety and
 this was true also of the island like
 Peloponnesus and some other portions
 Of the Greek peninsula. But an equal
 ly important part of Greece-or better.
 Of the land of the Hellenes-were the
 settlements made by mariners on the
 shores of the mainland that hem in
 the Mediterranean. These settlements
 constituted an unbroken fringe of
 Hellas along the shores of Asia Minor
 and scattered communities upon the
 shores of Italy. in Sicily, even in north
 ern Africa and what is now southern
 France. This was the loose Greece
 or Hellas at tits greatest-a domain of
 one people, but of many states
 Greece Had League of Nations Aaainst
 Greece gave the world it's first
 league of nations: the Delian league,
 organized in AT B. c, by way of mu-
 tual protection against the external . aggression of Persia, which had a sort
 Of Berlin to- Bagdsd ambition of its own in those days. Athens was the 1 only principal power in this league and was the recognized leader of the 1 organization.
 Later came the hegernony of Ath-
 ems by force, the paradoxical empire of V a democracy, bereft even of the trap ' pings of monarchy. At this period . . and under what may be termed the enl- 1' pires of Sparta and Thebes, close '. approach to a Greek nation may be ..o said to have existed; but in none of
 these eras were most of the territories peopled by Greeks included, and even :. large part fthe Greek peninsula it. .s self were governed by other Hellenic . states. For a brief period under Alex .1 ander the Great Greece reached the - - status of a nation, but 1t was a fusion " forced by virtual outsider and con-
 tafned much territory inhabited by ;. others than Greeks; and on the death ss of the great military genius Hellenes :" ernmental units.
 ,el Greece, expanding from the city is state, had comprised for moment k almost the whole civilized world, but ,e the great dilation was followed by an
 equally great contraction. Greece fell al under the rising power of Rome and
 became a mere province in the western vs empire.
 a. The military ability and power of B. the Greeks died under the Roman
 yoke; but when the eastern empire CT was formed. with Constantinople as it's
 seat, Greek culture conquered where a Greek arms could not. and Byzantium by became in reality a great Greek state on Once more the territory that. by con- m struction at least, can be regarded as $ Greece, spread outward until 1t held
 within it's boundaries much of south of eastern Europe. It is on reviving the
 glory of this period in Grecian history S. that Greek ambition, when it could d. live at all has dwelt
 e. "The night of Greece's martyrdom
 was not under the Roman yoke, bu, ct in the long period from the fall of By
 zantium to modern times. During that ey time Greece was all but snuffed out de territoriaily. while the blood Of it's peo- Id pie suffered diiution from the hordes
 of conquerors and immigrants of al- re most every nation. of Europe that
 poured in upon it-Albanians. SIavs re Teutons. Spanish. French, venetians ad Turks. In 1869 Turkey finally gained es complete dominance of what had been ds Greece.
 ss1 Greece, as a nation was born again - in 1929 as a result of a most turbulent Wn W war of independence against Turkey -ss which was at the same time a series aa ,la of civil wars among contending lead - CTS and factions. The new Greece T. - which emerged under the jcint pro- m mln tection of Great Britain, France and ee Russia comprised. besides the Cyclades islands and the nearby Peloponnesus
 a strip of land about 40 miles wide Sy across the peninsult north of the Pc
 loponnesus. It has been the constant as ambition of modern Greece to push it. IT. boundaries outward from this region
 which 1t considers only a nucleus un- 'Pt til much if not all of 'Hellas irridenta
 should be included. This ambition ha: ire led to continuous series of interna aD crises and external wars.
 ,as 'Now, 90 years after the achievement m of Greek independence. the territor, ho of the Kingdom is approximately thre, nc times as great as when it was estah. mi lished. Thanks to the gi eat war ans ah the dismemberr1ent of Turi-ey. Greco,
 no wincludes 'nuc hof old Macedonia .I. and southern 7hrace. practically all O
 the islands of lhe Aegean and . larg, t,. iss.a of :..S l-1 - -cc cs S------- on t'' A M coast nf Asia Ns.sl- T7eee c-aal- fIss .s flies almost within a stones throw O r the Dardanelles-a bare 90 miles iron
 Constantinople. Greece has advance, ; far toward attaining her ambition. in- '"rhe modern kingdom of the Hel - lenes-as Greece IS officially known
 has had five rulers. Not one ha ,at served until his natural death or volun