The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-05-16
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC J. HAsKIN, Director,
Washington, d. c.
GREECE TO-DAY.

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country which has been at war con-
tinuously for nine years, which has
been industrially ruined by war and
is heartily sick of war to the last
peasant, and yet determined to go on
fighting-that is the strange case of
Greece today, according to American
observers who have recently returned
from there
Crops in the rich central valleys of
Greece are rotting on the ground for
lack of men to gather them. Industry
is in chaos. Boys are growing up
into manhood without knowing any
occupation except war, and each new
generation, as it reaches military age,
is drafted to fill the ranks. The fl
nances OF the country are in a tangle
which it will take a century to
straighten out. And yet Greece fights
on, not in self defense, but in the eff
fort to consolidate an empire.
Greece, the observers say, is the
purest survival Of the spirit of nation
alism, which formed the present
European states out of chaos and is
slowly giving way to the world spirit,
the sense of international solidarity,
the feeling that all nations together
have a common responsibility for the
human race.
Allied diplomacy has played its part
in the Greek situation. The allies
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doubtless strong groups within Greece
have fomented war because they ex-
pected commercial advantage both
from its continuance and from its ulti-
mate success. But, in addition to
these diplomatic and commercial in
gradients which go into the making
of all wars, Greece is said to be sus
tanned by a genuine popular faith in
a great Greek empire. Altho there
are Inducements of popular opposi-
ton to war, the typical Greek, who
has been starved and ruined by war,
Is still willing to go on fighting for
his dream of a greater Greece. He has
not shared the great establishment
which was brought to the western
world.
The Allied Policy.
To understand the part played by
the allies in bringing about the present
situation in Greece one must glance
back to the nineteenth century history.
Since in 1854 Great Britain and
France fought with Turkey against
Russia they have remained united on
one principle in the Balkan question.
Neither power would allow either Rus
STA or Germany to get command of
Constantinople and the Dardanelles,
because these places exercise strategic
command over the routes to Asia
Minor, India and the Far East. Rus
STA and Germany now being disposed
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of a stable Balkan country to prevent
any new attempts at interference. By
the treaty of Sevres, Greece has an
nexed almost all of European Turkey
and has her eastern frontier on the
Black Sea, completely cutting off Con-
stantinople from the north. Also,
thru the efforts of Venizelos. she has
been given a large slice of Asia Minor
around Smyrna. For the consolidation
of gains which doubled her area,
financial and moral support were
vouchsafed from England and France.
Then last December came the political
change in Greece. Venizelos, of whom
the allies were sure, was overthrown
to permit the return of Constantine,
suspected of pro-German leanlngs
turnout the war. The Turkish ma
tionalists movement then showed I'M
expected recuperative power, and in
March inflicted a crushing defeat on
the Greek armies in Asia Minor.
Greece consequently finds herself up
against a stiff war to retain her new
| territory in Asia Minor at the very
time when allied support is withdrawn
because of the defeat of Venizelos.
This is where the feeling of ma
| tionality comes in. After a century
| of aspirations for national aggrandize-
ment the Greeks are now determined
to fight on for the Greek empire,
which for the first time seems within
their grasp. 1t is this determination
| to pursue a war for Greater Greece
| in spite of its ruinous effects on Little
Greece, in spite of the discomfort and
suffering at home, that strikes the
| westerner as incongruous.
Greece has been at war continu-
ously since 1912. Men who were boys
| of twenty in that war are now near
! ing thirty without having done a
stroke of productive work. In the
central region of the mainland, that
region famous for it's green valleys
and fertile. olive groves, the most
prosperous section of a Greece that
is by no means all so fertile, the olives
| fall unpicked to rot upon the ground.
has been responsible. From the little
villages go forth reluctantly the
peasants, casting a backward melan-
choly eye upon the deserted farms.
A Financial Mystery.
Nor is the financing of the present
war any less desperate than its draft
! of men. No one appears to know
| just how it is being done, and
! rumors fly of underground loans
| from a variety of European powers
who might be interested in having the
| Greeks in the Unsettled part of Asia
| Minor that comes between Berlin and
Bagdad. A more likely hypothesis
| offered in a discussion at the Ameri-
| can Consulate was that the money is
4
/ treasury without hope of repayment.
The treasury is already unable to
| meet passing domestic obligations
| Thirty thousand Georgian peasants
! that Venizelos had brought over to
colonize an undeveloped portion of
| Northern Greece were absolutely
dropped by Constantine, who felt
perhaps that he could not pay. They
| are starving with a death rate of from
| so to 100 a day and naturally the
country which they had started to
! cultivate will remain unproductive
| and a waste.
And what use is being made OF all
! this as a political weapon by the
| Venizelists? None at all. They are
| against Constantine, but not against
| the war. The return of Constantine
was the signal for a new and tremen-
dous effort to crush the Turks The
reason was simple. He desired great
| victories TO consolidate him on the
| throne. He called out three more
H. =, ~