how their nationality can be defined
except in terms of their own conscious and expressed desire; for a nation
is simply a group of men inspired by a common will to co-operate for
certain purposes, and cannot be brought into existence by the external
manipulation of any specific objective factors, but solely by the inward
subjective impulse of its constituents. It was a travesty of justice to
put the Orthodox Epirots at the mercy of a Moslem majority (which had been
massacring them the year before) on the ground that they happened to speak
the same language. The hardship was aggravated by the fact that all the
routes connecting Epirus with the outer world run through Yannina and
Salonika, from which the new frontier sundered her; while great natural
barriers separate her from Avlona and Durazzo, with which the same
frontier so ironically signalled her union.

[Footnote 1: Corfu itself is neutralized already by the agreement under
which Great Britain transferred the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1863.]

The award of the powers roused great indignation in Greece, but Venezelos
was strong enough to secure that it should scrupulously be respected; and
the 'correct attitude' which he inflexibly maintained has finally won its
reward. As soon as the decision of the powers was announced, the Epirots
determined to help themselves. They raised a militia, and asserted their
independence so successfully, that they compelled the Prince of Wied, the
first (and perhaps the last) ruler of the new 'Albania', to give them home
rule in matters of police and education, and to recognise Greek as the
official language for their local administration. They ensured observance
of this compact by the maintenance of their troops under arms. So matters
continued, until a rebellion among his Moslem subjects and the outbreak of
the European War in the summer of 1914 obliged the prince to depart,
leaving Albania to its natural state of anarchy. The anarchy might have
restored every canton and village to the old state of contented isolation,
had it not been for the religious hatred between the Moslems and the
Epirots, which, with the removal of all external control, began to vent
itself in an aggressive assault of the former upon the latter, and
entailed much needless misery in the autumn months.

The reoccupation of Epirus by Greek troops had now become a matter of life
and death to its inhabitants, and in October 1914 Venezelos took the
inevitable ste