CONDITIONS IN SERBIA, GREECE, AND RUMANIA

During this time the Bulgarians and Germans were establishing a semicivil government in Serbia. Many conflicting reports were circulated, some of them to the effect that there was much friction between the German and Bulgarian officers. Whether Germany and Bulgaria really intended to make an attack on Saloniki has until now been a question, but in those districts near the Greek frontier considerable forces of Germans remained, garrisoning the large towns, notably Monastir. The forces along the frontier itself were Bulgarians at first, but toward the end of February, 1916, detachments of Germans began taking their places along the front. The Allies in Saloniki reported that up to this time there were heavy desertions from the Bulgarian forces, the deserters coming in to Saloniki, complaining that they were starved and did not wish to fight the French and British. When the Germans appeared on the front, these desertions suddenly ceased.

In the middle of January Emperor William of Germany paid Serbia a visit and inspected the captured towns and cities of most prominence. On the 18th he arrived in Nish, where he was met by King Ferdinand and Prince Boris of Bulgaria. The two sovereigns then attended Mass in the cathedral together, after which they reviewed the troops.

At a dinner which followed the emperor announced to King Ferdinand his nomination to the rank of a Prussian field marshal and presented him with the baton. King Ferdinand in turn bestowed the order for bravery on the emperor and General von Mackensen. In a speech which he made, King Ferdinand addressed the emperor with "Ave Imperator, CÆsar et Rex." ("Hail Emperor, CÆsar and King.")

During the first two months of the year the Allies had continued to reenforce their forces in Saloniki, and toward the end of February there were reports to the effect that General Sarrail would assume an offensive up into Macedonia and Bulgaria. On January 20, 1916, the ships of the Allies again bombarded Dedeagatch vigorously, then proceeded to Port Lagos and swept that seaport with a heavy shell fire. A few days later a feat, which in some respects established a new record in the annals of French aviation, was performed by an attacking squadron of forty French aeroplanes.

The French squadron left Saloniki at seven in the morning and divided into two parts, one of which proceeded to Monastir, about sixty miles distant, and the other going to Ghevgli. Some of the aeroplanes were armed with guns.

Altogether over two hundred projectiles were discharged at the enemy's camp, on the building occupied by the Bulgarian headquarters in Monastir, and on other military establishments. The airmen were vigorously bombarded in return, but sustained no casualties. One notable feature of the raid was that the squadron had to contend with a forty-mile gale from abeam during the whole trip and they had also to fly over mountains 6,000 feet in height. By noon both sections of the squadron had returned to Saloniki.

On the part of Greece there was no change; she still continued her attitude of sullen acquiescence to the presence of the Allies' troops in Saloniki. In the last week of January General Sarrail sent a detachment to occupy Cape and Fort Kara Burun, about twelve miles from Saloniki and commanding the harbor. This action, it was stated, was due to the fact that a British transport had been torpedoed by a German submarine under the very guns of the fort. As usual, Greece protested, and, again as usual, no notice was taken of her protest.

At about this same time King Constantine sent for the American correspondent of the Associated Press in Athens and asked him to make public certain statements he wished to make, whereupon he gave the journalist an interview so remarkable that when it was published it attracted world-wide attention.

"It is the merest cant," he said, "for Great Britain and France to talk about the violation of the neutrality of Belgium after what they themselves have done and are doing.... The only forum of public opinion open to me is the United States. The situation is far too vital for me to care a snap about royal dignity in the matter of interviews when the very life of Greece as an independent country is at stake. I shall appeal to America again and again, if necessary, for that fair hearing which has been denied me by the press of the Allies.

"Just look at the list of Greek territories already occupied by the allied troops—Lemnos, Imbros, Mytilene, Castelloriza, Corfu, Saloniki, including the Chalcidice Peninsula, and a large part of Macedonia. In proportion to all Greece it is as if that part of the United States which was won from Mexico after the Mexican War were occupied by foreign troops, and not so much as by your leave.... Where is the necessity for the occupation of Corfu? If Greece is an ally of Serbia, so also is Italy, and transportation of the Serbs to Italy would be simpler than to Corfu. Is it because the Italians are refusing to accept the Serbs, fearing the spread of cholera, and the Allies are thinking that the Greeks want to be endangered by cholera any more than the Italians?... The history of the Balkan politics of the Allies is the record of one crass mistake after another, and now, through pique over the failure of their every Balkan calculation, they try to unload on Greece the results of their own stupidity. We warned them that the Gallipoli expedition would be fruitless and that the Austro-Germans would surely crush Serbia.... At the beginning of the war eighty per cent of the Greeks were favorable to the Allies; to-day not forty, no, not twenty per cent would turn their hands to aid the Allies."

As for Venizelos, his voice was no longer heard. So disliked was he by the Government that when certain soldiers joined in a celebration of his name-day, fifty of them were sentenced to a month's confinement as a punishment for so expressing their sympathy. In the middle of February, 1916, this enmity was especially acute. Venizelos himself told a journalist that he was holding himself so aloof from politics that he did not even read the reports of the proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies.

But on March 1, 1916, there was a report from Athens that King Constantine had suddenly summoned Venizelos. Several interviews followed, and it was then announced that the king and Venizelos were reconciled. Whether that meant any change in Greece's policy was not mentioned. The general impression prevailed at this time, however, that the great success of the Russians in Asiatic Turkey was having its effect on the King of Greece and his Government.

Of Rumania little was heard during the entire winter, no startling changes having taken place in her attitude. In January the British Government contracted with Rumania for the purchase of 800,000 tons of wheat, to the value of about fifty million dollars, to be delivered by the middle of April.

On February 14, 1916, the Rumanian Government announced that its mobilization had been completed by the calling up of a fresh class and that the General Staff was completing the defenses of the Carpathians and the fortifications along the banks of the Danube in the new Dobrudja territory, which had been taken from Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars. Take Jonescu, the well-known Rumanian statesman, in an interview with a French journalist on the same date said:

"As regards Rumanian policy; we made a great mistake in not intervening when Bulgaria entered the war. I hope that we shall not make the same mistake again and that we shall not quail before Germany's threats, if she makes them.... The country is unanimous on this point."[Back to Contents]