Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1921-08-17
Hellas Victorious.

which was the citadel of all Turkish
hopes, and the greatest argument of
all the enemies of Hellenism, was
taken by storm by the Hellenic
troops in a brilliant offensive lasting
less than ten days and carried on
with the greatest successes that ever
crowned the Greek arms.
Under command of its foremost
military leaders all of whom earned
their spurs in the Balkan wars, the
Greek army has taken the field a.
gainst Turkey singlehanded, under
the most critical circumstances that
ever faced a country which for ten
successive years has had a more or
less continuous, war in its hands. ,
The Turkish resistance SO labor
iously built up by the Bolsheviks
and the French, who do not mind
cooperating when ii, comes to fight
ing against the Greeks, has crum-
bled along the entire front of a
line more than ESQ miles long
stretching from Yeni Shehir, in the
North clear through to Tchivril in
the South. The official reports from
both the Gre elk and Turkish sources
confirm the enormous losses suffer
ed by the defenders of the Turkish
positions who have been outma-
noeuvred and outfought by the
Greek command on every phase OF
this offensive.
A conservative estimate of the
Turkish losses is given by the fact
that in Kutahia alone nearly thirty
thousand prisoners fell into Greek
hands, with two hundred cannon
and enormous quantities of supplies
and ammunition of all kinds, while
the booty aken in Eski Shehir is
still to be counted. From. the Black
Sea to Lycaonian and Pissidian from
tiers, and from the Aegean %seacoast
for a distance of one hundred and
fifty miles, a territory larger than
Italy and almost as large as the
states of New York and New jersey,
is held today by the Greek troops
with nothing to stay their advance
to Angora, except the demoralized
remnants of the scattered Kemalist
forces.
The Greek army has taken all
this ground in the face of the bit
terest opposition of France and
Italy, at a time when Great Britain
openly declared its neutrality in the
Greco-Turkish campaign, and while
America stood as a disinterested and
Indifferent onlooker of. what was
going on.
But it is for this reason that the
Greek success, when it is closely
examined, assumes a still greater
Importance, and becomes a matter
for study for all those who take
an interest in North Eastern affairs.
Greece. it should be remembered,
offers to-day one of the best ex-
amples of a country which was de-
MED the right of self-determination
as that right was defined during
and after the great war. 1t is in
the exercise of this right that
Greece found herself isolated and
abused by the selfsame countries
that were the loudest supporters of
self determination, and it is by
sticking to this right that she found
her moral strength increasing and
her enthusiasm growing, and it is
the result of Greek strength and
Greek enthusiasm that we are wit
Messing to-day in Asia Minor.
One may well ask to-day for the
reason 6f this hostility more or less
openly shown to the only country
which is left to fight the war of
civilization against murderous and
barbarous Turkey, which war is not
a new one but the same which has
been carried on by theGreek nation
ever since the fall of Constantinople,
and more actively so, in the last hun
dred years. What has Greece done
to France and to Italy and to Great
Britain and last but not least TO the
United States so as to incur the hos
tility of the two first powers, the un
:friendliness Of the third, and our in
difference toward her struggle?
That France and Italy might value
the friendship of the Turk more than
that of Greece is conceivable, while
the identity of the British and Greek
interest in the Eastern Mediterra-
mean does not by any means explain
the present official and neutral atti-