GREECE AND THE ALLIES. T HERE seems to be little doubt
that Greece will give the assurances required by the Quadruple Euteute. It would be madness for us to undertake the first difficult operations in Serbia without knowing for certain what the Greeks would do in the event of the Serbians or any of the Allied troops being compelled to cross the frontier into Greek territory. We should be in the position of a man who had crossed a deep chasm and then looked on with smiling complacency while a peasant proprietor who happened to own a bit of land on the edge of the chasm kicked away the bridge by which he had crossed. To complete the picture one might add that the man had crossed the chasm to succour a wounded friend of the peasant, whom the peasant had promised to rescue, but at the last moment felt unable to help in any way. While we thus state the unanswerable ease for the man who goes to save the wounded friend, we need not be too hard on the peasant, A little time before he probably meant all that he said ; but when the foreseen crisis came the ereat man of the neighbourhood, who was very powerful and a notorious bully to boot, told him that if he crossed the bridge to help his friend, or allowed any one else to cross. be would be seized, strangled, and thrown down the chasm. Greece no doubt believes that Germany has the power to do this. She is terrorized. All her actions have been governed by this terror. If we bear this explanation in mind, we shall be able to make all the excuses that are possible for a miserable period of vacillation and had faith. The motive at the bottom of Greek policy has been fairly obvious for some time—the telegrams of the German Emperor to his brother-in-law, King Constantine, have been frequently quoted—but it was actually acknowledged by the Greek Minister of Justice, M. Rallis, in a very interesting " interview " published in the Daily Mail of Tuesday. Greece knows that she must make an enemy of somebody. Who is likely to be the worst enemy—the one who can do Greece most harm ? She —in the person of her present Government, which, un- fortunately, does not include the statesman with the longest sight in Greece—answers " Germany." She remembers Belgium; she has a. closer view of Serbia being overrun and laid waste. The Greek King and his Government tell themselves that if ever they came into the power of a resentful Germany their land would be ravaged and bumbled like Belgium and Serbia.. But how would Britain and France behave as enemies ? Well, they might be angry and resentful too, but in any case they would behave like gentlemen. Therefore—so the Greek argument has run—have Britain and France annoyed with byou if you can manage the situation in no other way, but y no means have Germany for an enemy. Up to a, certain point the course of Greek policy was thus a triumph for 'f frightfulness." Germany had succeeded in imposing her will by terror.
The danger of Greece taking a wholly wrong path seems to be passing, but she still lives under the terror. She is still partly paralysed. " Almost a triumph for frightful- ness " perhaps describes the situation most nearly. The duty of the Allies is to remove that terror. It is the only diplomatic argument that can convince. Each new event makes the necessity of the now Balkan campaign more evident. Not to have undertaken it would have been to let our case in the high politioal Courts of Greece and Roumania go against us by default. It is a very curious thing, the blind and almost universal conviction in the Balkans that the Central Powers are invincible. Balkan soldiers and politicians apparently cannot see much further than the ends of their poses. Financial strength, command of the sea, superior resources in men and money—all these things are to them the mere sound and fury of debate, signifying nothing. They see only the immediate power of the vast German military machine, and they say of the Allies, in the words attributed to King Constantine in the Daily Mail, " They cannot beat Germany ; they will never beat her."
All the same, this extreme susceptibility to a spectacle of strength near at hand is fed by the eyes rather than by the mind. It is capable of being changed, A proof that the terror of Germany is not immutable was given by King Constantine himself when he proposed of his own accord to come in on the side of the Allies. This offer, according to the " interview " in the Daily Mail, was made last April. At that time the Russians were on the crests of the Carpathians ; conquered Galicia lay behind them, and they looked confidently down on the great plain of Hungary. Then a marvellous transformation took place— the most wonderful thing which has happened in the war, except the unparalleled victory of the British Navy. Germany set to work to revitalize Austria, who seemed to be crumbling into decay. She put in motion the great phalanx which pushed irresistibly across the San, and she supplied the Austrian troops not only with new officers but with a new heart and new supplies. The Greek Staff must have thought that if Germany could do that astonishing thing she could do anything. What Sir Edward Grey said was true in the main, that no diplomacy could avail against the argument of military power. If Russian troops had planted themselves firmly on the Hungarian plain, the critics would have found that our diplomacy had been exceedingly good. What has happened once, however, can happen again. Russia will again reach the Carpathians. Even in the coming winter she will probably reduce the weakening German line in Russia to very sore straits. In the West—if that is not too far off for Balkan Staff officers to see—the Germans, who have already lost the power of offensive, will soon be hard put to it to maintain the defensive. Since Greece can be impressed only by the proof of military strength under her eyes, she shall be so impressed. It seems that Russia can spare troops for the Balkans after all. Mean, hile Greece will give us the guarantees that she will not attempt to intern or in any way interfere with Allied troops whatever may happen.
The vast majority of Greeks have not forgotten what they owe to the England of Byron ; nor do Englishmen forget their traditional sympathy with Greece. At this moment they understand the difficulties of Greece better than when a few weeks ago they were roused to scorn by the cool denunciation of the Greek treaty with Serbia. They know that the excuse that Serbia was being attacked not only by Bulgaria but by the Central Powers was no excuse, but they understand more of the motive that made Greece search for an excuse, however poor in itself. Indeed, the situation is so clearly capable of further rapid changes that for our part we do not despair of the restoration before long of Constitutional practice in Greece. It has been said that every Greek is a politician. In such an alert and febrile nation the suppression of the will of the people, as declared at the last elections, will not be indefinitely accepted with calm resignation. For some time the King may do what he pleases, acting on the strength of the military renown which the Balkan Ware brought him, and on his great popularity ; but when the hand of the Allies begins to make itself felt in the Balkans the Greeks will remember more acutely than ever their ambitions and their long-standing enmity against Bulgaria. We do not, and shall not, ask Greece to come into the war. By that time—to speak brutally—it will be a matter of indifference to us, from a military point of view, whether she does or not. But she will be alive at last to her own interests. She will see that whereas Serbia, gallant and enduring, will have a claim to compensations that cannot be denied in any settlement, she herself will have asserted none. She may even have come to understand that the menace from Germany is not after all very real. Greece is a sea Power, and her people are largely sailors for natural causes. Few countries in the world are more open to the protection of sea power or the attacks of spa power—but here the game is all in British hands, not in the hands of Germany. In short, we fancy that the day of M. Venezelos, who has always guided Greece rightly, and who cannot be called anti-dynastic, since he alone saved the dynasty, is by no means over. , _
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