World's War Events $v Volume 3: Beginning with the departure of the first American destroyers for service abroad in April, 1917, and closing with the treaties of peace in 1919.
History
World's War Events $v Volume 3: Beginning with the departure of the first American destroyers for service abroad in April, 1917, and closing with the treaties of peace in 1919.
World War, 1914-1918
It was with this state of things in mind, and recalling his well known
ambitions to found a Greater Greece--by extending Epirus north along
the Adriatic, and bringing the millions of Greeks of Asia Minor at least
under the protection of the Government at Athens--that I mustered up my
courage and asked M. Venizelos offhand if he felt confident of being
able even to maintain the integrity of his country as it existed before
the war.
[Sidenote: What Greece must do for the Allies.]
"Not unless those of us Greeks who have remained faithful to the cause
of humanity and our honor are ultimately able to lend the Allies
material help in a measure sufficient to counterbalance the harm the
action of the Royalists has caused them," was the prompt reply; "and by
material help I mean military aid. We must fight, and fight, and keep on
fighting, for it is only with blood--with Greek blood--that the stain
upon Greek honor can be washed away. It is only our army that can save
us, and that is why we have been so impatient of the delay there has
been in equipping it and getting it to the front. The one division we
have in the trenches now, and the two others that are ready to go, are
not enough, but they are about all we have been able to raise so far.
Thessaly is for us (as you may have seen in traveling across it), and
would give us two more divisions at least; but our Allies have not yet
seen fit to allow us to go there after them."
[Sidenote: Venizelos determines to aid the Allies.]
M. Venizelos spoke of a number of other things before I left him
(notably of the extent to which the Russian revolution and the entry of
America had helped him in his fight to save Greece), but it was plain
that the problem uppermost in his mind was that of wiping out the score
of the Allies against his country by giving them a substantial measure
of assistance in the field.
"Do not fail to visit our force on the ---- sector before you leave the
Balkans," was his parting injunction. "There may be a chance of seeing
it in action before very long, and if you do, you will need no further
assurance of the way in which we shall make our honor white before our
Allies and all the world."
[Sidenote: Unenviable position of the Venizelists.]
[Sidenote: Elaborate precautions against treachery.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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