XII. - - - - - 123
CHAPTER XIII. - - - - - 139
CHAPTER XIV. - - - - - 152
CHAPTER XV. - - - - - 162
CHAPTER XVI. - - - - - 172
CHAPTER XVII. - - - - - 177
CHAPTER XVIII. - - - - - 186
CHAPTER XIX. - - - - - 200
CHAPTER XX. - - - - - 207
CHAPTER XXI. - - - - - 217
AFTERWORD - - - - - - 230
INDEX - - - - - - 239

{1}

GREECE AND THE ALLIES

1914-1922

INTRODUCTION

Ingenious scholars, surveying life from afar, are apt to interpret
historical events as the outcome of impersonal forces which shape the
course of nations unknown to themselves. This is an impressive theory,
but it will not bear close scrutiny. Human nature everywhere responds
to the influence of personality. In Greece this response is more
marked than anywhere else. No people in the world has been so
completely dominated by personal figures and suffered so grievously
from their feuds, ever since the day when strife first parted Atreides,
king of men, and god-like Achilles.

The outbreak of the European War found Greece under the sway of King
Constantine and his Premier Eleutherios Venizelos; and her history
during that troubled era inevitably centres round these two
personalities.

By the triumphant conduct of the campaigns of 1912 and 1913, King
Constantine had more than effaced the memory of his defeat in 1897.
His victories ministered to the national lust for power and formed an
earnest of the glory that was yet to come to Greece. Henceforth a halo
of military romance--a thing especially dear to the hearts of
men--shone about the head of Constantine; and his grateful country
bestowed upon him the title of {2} _Stratelates_. In town mansions and
village huts men's mouths were filled with his praise: one dwelt on his
dauntless courage, another on his strategic genius, a third on his
sympathetic recognition of the claims of the common soldier, whose
hardships he shared, and for whose life he evinced a far greater
solicitude than for his own.

But it was not only as a leader of armies that King Constantine
appealed to the hearts of his countrymen. They loved to explain to
strangers the reason of the name _Koumbaros_ or "Gossip," by which they
commonly called