m.

We arrived at Koritza on June 30th and found it
"in a state of great tension." "Persons afraid of arrest. A sort of
silent terror in the air. Great Greek propaganda going on, and Greek
troops everywhere. People called on us and said many wished to come,
but dared not. They prayed us to save Koritza. Called on the
Commandant, Colonel Condoulis, to whom Mr. Nevinson had an
introduction." I learnt what a mistake the Americans had made in
1903, when they put the mission under Austrian instead of English
protection. The Greeks now, in consequence, pretended that the
Albanian school was an Austrian school, and declared there was no
Albanian movement. The Albanian Nationalists, on the other hand,
were in bitter trouble, for, through the years of Turkish rule, they
had with danger and toil kept this school "the beacon light," open.
They now found the Greek more oppressive than the Turk. The American
missionaries had been expelled from the town at twenty-four hours'
notice. The school was closed. The Turkish troops had behaved well
in the town, and never entered a private house. The Greeks had shown
themselves as conquerors bent on pillage, and behaved with cruelty
and violence.

Colonel Condoulis did not even pretend to be out for anything but
wholesale annexation. He showed on a map frontiers which should
include even Tepeleni. I exclaimed, horrified: "But that is half
Albania!" Condoulis did not deny it. He merely said: "There is a
French proverb which says--appetite comes with eating. We have
eaten; now we must eat more and more." I replied: "Monsieur, those
that eat too much get bellyache." Which annoyed him.

I have met few things more repulsive than a military man bent on
conquest, for lust of conquest brings a man lower than the beasts.
The beasts eat for hunger. Condoulis wished to eat for sheer greed.
May the day come when such men will be looked On as mad dogs to be
destroyed painlessly before they have time to inflict misery upon
peoples.

What with the Serbs at Ochrida and tijle Greeks at Kctitza, I
began to regret that I had ever wished to send the Turk from Europe.
While he was there, there was yet hope. These "Christian"
conquerors were a hundredfold worse.

They showed their devilry by arranging a meeting that should cause
Mr. Nevinson to write to his paper that Koritza wished to be Greek.
The arrival of a well-known journalist was a chance to be exploited.

Unluckily for Condoulis, we were not