With the French in France and Salonika Part 6

Or, if Greece remained neutral, no one could better judge whether neutrality was or was not best for her than Constantine. In the three years before the World War, he had led his countrymen through two wars, and if both, as King and commander of her armies, he thought they needed rest and peace, he was ent.i.tled to that opinion. Instead, he was misrepresented and abused. His motives were a.s.sailed; he was accused of being dominated by his Imperial brother-in-law. At no time since the present war began has he been given what we would call a "square deal." The writer has followed the career of Constantine since the Greek-Turkish war of 1897, when they "drank from the same canteen," and as Kings go, or until they all do go, respects him as a good King. To his people he is generous, kind, and considerate; as a general he has added to the territory of Greece many miles and seaports; he is fond of his home and family, and in his reign there has been no scandal, no Knights of the Round Table, such as disgraced the German court, no Tripoli ma.s.sacre, no Congo atrocities, no Winter Garden or La Scala favorites. Venizelos may or may not be as unselfish a patriot. But justly or not, it is difficult to disa.s.sociate what Venizelos wants for Greece with what he wants for Venizelos. The King is removed from any such suspicion. He is already a King, and except in continuing to be a good King, he can go no higher.

How Venizelos came so prominently into the game is not without interest. As long ago as when the two German cruisers escaped from Messina and were sold to Turkey, the diplomatic representatives of the Allies in the Balkans were instructed to see that Turkey and Germany did not get together, and that, as a balance of power in case of such a union, the Balkan States were kept in line. Instead of themselves attending to this, the diplomats placed the delicate job in the hands of one man. At the framing of the Treaty of London, of all the representatives from the Balkans, the one who most deeply impressed the other powers was M. Venizelos. And the task of keeping the Balkans neutral or with the Allies was left to him.

He has a dream of a Balkan "band," a union of all the Balkan princ.i.p.alities. It obsesses him. And to bring that dream true he was willing to make concessions which King Constantine, who considered only what was good for Greece, and was not concerned with a Balkan alliance, thought most unwise. Venizelos also was working for the good of Greece, but he was convinced it could come to her only through the union. He was willing to give Kavalla to Bulgaria in exchange for Asia Minor, from the Dardanelles to Smyrna. But the King would not consent. As a buffer against Turkey, he considered Kavalla of the greatest strategic value, and he had the natural pride of a soldier in holding on to land he himself had added to his country. But in his opposition to Venizelos in this particular, credit was not given him for acting in the interests of Greece, but of playing into the hands of Germany.

Another step he refused to take, which refusal the Allies attributed to his pro-German leanings, was to attack the Dardanelles. In the wars of 1912-13 the King showed he was an able general. With his staff he had carefully considered an attack upon the Dardanelles. He submitted this plan to the Allies, and was willing to aid them if they brought to the a.s.sault 400,000 men. They claim he failed them. He did fail them, but not until after they had failed him by bringing thousands of men instead of the tens of thousands he knew were needed.

The Dardanelles expedition was not required to prove the courage of the French and British. Beyond furnis.h.i.+ng fresh evidence of that, it has been a failure. And in refusing to sacrifice the lives of his subjects the military judgment of Constantine has been vindicated. He was willing to attack Turkey through Kavalla and Thrace, because by that route he presented an armed front to Bulgaria. But, as he pointed out, if he sent his army to the Dardanelles, he left Kavalla at the mercy of his enemy.

In his mistrust of Bulgaria he has certainly been justified.

Greece is not at war, but in outward appearance she is as firmly on a war footing as is France or Italy. A man out of uniform is conspicuous, and all day regiments pa.s.s through the streets carrying the campaign kit and followed by the medical corps, the mountain batteries, and the transport wagons. In the streets the crowds are cheering Denys Cochin, the special amba.s.sador from France. He makes speeches to them from the balcony of our hotel, and the mob wave flags and shout "Zito! Zito!"

In a play Colonel Savage produced, I once wrote the same scene and placed it in the same hotel in Athens. In Athens the local color was superior to ours, but George Marion stage-managed the mob better than did the Athens police.

Athens is in a perplexed state of mind. She does not know if she wants to go to war or wants peace. She does not know if she should go to war, on which side she wants to fight. People tell you frankly that their heart-beats are with France, but that they are afraid of Germany.

"If Germany wins," they asked, "what will become of us? The Germans already are in Monastir, twenty miles from our border. They have driven the Serbians, the French, and the British out of Serbia, and they will make our King a German va.s.sal."

"Then, why don't you go out and fight for your King?" I asked.

"He won't let us," they said.

When the army of a country is mobilized, it is hard to understand that that country is neutral. You expect to see evidences of her partisans.h.i.+p for one cause or the other. But in Athens, from a shop-window point of view, both the Allies and the Germans are equally supported. There are just as many pictures of the German generals as of Joffre, as many post-cards of the German Emperor as of King George and King Albert.

After Paris, it is a shock to see German books, portraits of German statesmen, composers, and musicians. In one shop-window conspicuously featured, evidently with intent, is an engraving showing Napoleon III surrendering to Bismarck. In the princ.i.p.al bookstore, books in German on German victories, and English and French pamphlets on German atrocities stand shoulder to shoulder. The choice is with you.

Meanwhile, on every hand are the signs of a nation on the brink of war; of armies of men withdrawn from trades, professions, homes; of men marching and drilling in squads, companies, brigades. At times the columns are so long that in pa.s.sing the windows of the hotel they take an hour. All these fighting men must be fed, clothed, paid, and while they are waiting to fight, whether they are goatherds or piano-tuners or shopkeepers, their business is going to the devil.

CHAPTER VI

WITH THE ALLIES IN SALONIKA

SALONIKA, December, 1915.

We left Athens on the first s.h.i.+p that was listed for Salonika. She was a strange s.h.i.+p. During many years on various vessels in various seas, she was the most remarkable. Every Greek loves to gamble; but for some reason, or for that very reason, for him to gamble on sh.o.r.e is by law made difficult. In consequence, as soon as the _Hermoupolis_ raised anchor she became a floating gambling-h.e.l.l. There were twenty-four first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers who were in every way first cla.s.s; Greek officers, bankers, merchants, and deputies, and their time on the steamer from eleven each morning until four the next morning was spent in dealing baccarat.

When the stewards, who were among the few persons on board who did not play, tried to spread a table-cloth and serve food, they were indignantly rebuked. The most untiring players were the captain and the s.h.i.+p's officers. Whenever they found that navigating their s.h.i.+p interfered with their baccarat we came to anchor. We should have reached Salonika in a day and a half. We arrived after four days. And all of each day and half of each night we were anch.o.r.ed in midstream while the captain took the bank. The hills of Euboea and the mainland formed a giant funnel of snow, through which the wind roared. It swept the s.h.i.+p from bow to stern, turning to ice the woodwork, the velvet cus.h.i.+ons, even the blankets. Fortunately, it was not the kind of a s.h.i.+p that supplied sheets, or we would have frozen in our berths. Outside of the engine-room, which was aft, there was no heat of any sort, but undaunted, the gamblers, in caps and fur coats, their breath rising in icy clouds, crouched around the table, their frozen fingers fumbling with the cards.

There were two charming Italians on board, a father and son--the father absurdly youthful, the boy incredibly wise. They operate a chain of banks through the Levant. They watched the game but did not play. The father explained this to me. "My dear son is a born gambler," he said.

"So, in order that I may set him an example, I will not play until after he has gone to sleep."

Later, the son also explained. "My dear father," he whispered, "is an inveterate gambler. So, in order that I may reprove him, I do not gamble. At least not until he has gone to bed." At midnight I left them still watching each other. The next day the son said: "I got no sleep last night. For some reason, my dear father was wakeful, and it was four o'clock before he went to his cabin."

When we reached Volo the sun was s.h.i.+ning, and as the day was so beautiful, the gamblers remained on board and played baccarat. The rest of us explored Volo. On the mountains above it the Twenty-Four Villages were in sight, nestling on the knees of the hills. Their red-tiled houses rose one above the other, the roof of one on a line with the door-step of the neighbor just overhead. Their white walls, for Volo is a summer resort, were merged in the ma.s.ses of snow, but in Volo itself roses were still blooming, and in every garden the trees were heavy with oranges. They were so many that they hid the green leaves, and against the walls of purple, blue, and Pompeian red, made wonderful splashes of a gorgeous gold.

Apparently the captain was winning, for he sent word he would not sail until midnight, and nine of his pa.s.sengers dined ash.o.r.e. We were so long at table, not because the dinner was good, but because there was a charcoal brazier in the room, that we missed the moving-pictures. So the young Italian banker was sent to bargain for a second and special performance. In the Levant there always is one man who works, and one man who manages him. A sort of impresario. Even the boatmen and bootblacks have a manager who arranges the financial details. It is difficult to buy a newspaper without dealing through a third party. The moving-picture show, being of importance, had seven managers. The young Italian, undismayed, faced all of them. He wrangled in Greek, Turkish, French, and Italian, and they all talked to him at the same time.

Finally the negotiations came to an end, but our amba.s.sador was not satisfied.

"They got the best of me," he reported to us. "They are going to give the show over again, and we are to have the services of the pianist, the orchestra of five, and the lady vocalist. But I had to agree to pay for the combined entertainment entirely too much."

"How much?" I asked.

"Eight drachmas," he said apologetically, "or, in your money, one dollar and fifty-two cents."

"Each?" I said.

He exclaimed in horror: "No, divided among the nine of us!"

No wonder Volo is a popular summer resort, even in December.

The next day, after sunset, we saw the snow-capped peak of Mount Olympus and the lamps of a curving water-front, the long rows of green air ports that mark the French hospital s.h.i.+ps, the cargo lights turned on the red crosses painted on their sides, the gray, grim battles.h.i.+ps of England, France, Italy, and Greece, and a bustling torpedo-boat took us in tow, and guided us through the floating mines and into the harbor of Salonika.

If it is true that happy are the people without a history, then Salonika should be thoroughly miserable. Some people make history; others have history thrust upon them. Ever since the world began Salonika has had history thrust upon her. She aspired only to be a great trading seaport.

She was content to be the place where the caravans from the Balkans met the s.h.i.+ps from the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, Egypt, and Asia Minor.

Her wharfs were counters across which they could swap merchandise. All she asked was to be allowed to change their money. Instead of which, when any two nations of the Near East went to the mat to settle their troubles, Salonika was the mat. If any country within a thousand-mile radius declared war on any other country in any direction whatsoever, the armies of both belligerents clashed at Salonika. They not only used her as a door-mat, but they used her hills to the north of the city for their battle-field. In the fighting, Salonika took no part. She merely loaned the hills. But she knew, whichever side won, two things would happen to her: She would pay a forced loan and subscribe to an entirely new religion. Three hundred years before Christ, the people of Salonika wors.h.i.+pped the mysterious G.o.ds who had their earthly habitation on the island of Thasos. The Greeks ejected them, and erected altars to Apollo and Aphrodite, the Egyptians followed and taught Salonika to fear Serapis; then came Roman G.o.ds and Roman generals; and then St. Paul. The Jews set up synagogues, the Mohammedans reared minarets, the Crusaders restored the cross, the Tripolitans restored the crescent, the Venetians re-restored Christianity. Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, Persians, Franks, Egyptians, and Barbary pirates, all, at one time or another, invaded Salonika. She was the butcher's block upon which they carved history.

Some ruled her only for months, others for years. Of the monuments to the religions forced upon her, the most numerous to-day are the synagogues of the Jews and the mosques of the Mohammedans. It was not only fighting men who invaded Salonika. Italy can count her great earthquakes on one hand; the United States on one finger. But a resident of Salonika does not speak of the "year of the earthquake." For him, it saves time to name the years when there was no earthquake. Each of those years was generally "the year of the great fire." If it wasn't one thing, it was another. If it was not a tidal wave, it was an epidemic; if it was not a war, it was a blizzard. The trade of Asia Minor flows into Salonika and with it carries all the plagues of Egypt. Epidemics of cholera in Salonika used to be as common as yellow fever in Guayaquil.

Those years the cholera came the people abandoned the seaport and lived on the plains north of Salonika, in tents. If the cholera spared them, the city was swept by fire; if there was no fire, there came a great frost. Salonika is on the same lat.i.tude as Naples, Madrid, and New York; and New York is not unacquainted with blizzards. Since the seventeenth century, last winter was said to be the coldest Salonika has ever known.

I was not there in the seventeenth century, but am willing to believe that last winter was the coldest since then; not only to believe it, but to swear to it. Of the frost in 1657 the Salonikans boast the cold was so severe that to get wood the people destroyed their houses. This December, when on the English and French front in Serbia, I saw soldiers using the same kind of fire-wood. They knew a mud house that is held together with beams and rafters can be rebuilt, but that you cannot rebuild frozen toes and fingers.

In thrusting history upon Salonika, the last few years have been especially busy. They gave her a fire that destroyed a great part of the city, and between 1911 and 1914 two cholera epidemics, the Italian-Turkish War, which, as Salonika was then Turkish, robbed her of hundreds of her best men, the Balkan-Turkish War, and the Second Balkan War. In this Salonika was part of the spoils, and Greece and Bulgaria fought to possess her. The Greeks won, and during one year she was at peace. Then, in 1914, the Great War came, and Serbia sent out an S. O.

S. call to her Allies. At the Dardanelles, not eighteen hours away, the French and English heard the call. But to reach Serbia by the shortest route they must disembark at Salonika, a port belonging to Greece, a neutral power; and in moving north from Salonika into Serbia they must pa.s.s over fifty miles of neutral Greek territory. Venizelos, prime minister of Greece, gave them permission. King Constantine, to preserve his neutrality, disavowed the act of his representative, and Venizelos resigned. From the point of view of the Allies, the disavowal came too late. As soon as they had received permission from the recognized Greek Government, they started, and, leaving the King and Venizelos to fight it out between them, landed at Salonika. The inhabitants received them calmly. The Greek officials, the colonel commanding the Greek troops, the Greek captain of the port, and the Greek collector of customs may have been upset; but the people of Salonika remained calm. They were used to it. Foreign troops were always landing at Salonika. The oldest inhabitant could remember, among others, those of Alexander the Great, Mark Antony, Constantine, the Sultan Murad, and several hundred thousand French and English who over their armor wore a red cross. So he was not surprised when, after seven hundred years, the French and English returned, still wearing the red cross.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "In Salonika the water-front belongs to everybody."]

One of the greatest a.s.sets of those who live in a seaport city is a view of their harbor. As a rule, that view is hidden from them by zinc sheds on the wharfs and warehouses. But in Salonika the water-front belongs to everybody. To the north it encloses the harbor in a great half-moon that from tip to tip measures three miles. At the western tip of this crescent are tucked away the wharfs for the big steamers, the bonded warehouses, the customs, the goods-sheds. The rest of the water-front is open to the people and to the small sailing vessels. For over a mile it is bordered by a stone quay, with stone steps leading down to the rowboats. Along this quay runs the princ.i.p.al street, and on the side of it that faces the harbor, in an unbroken row, are the hotels, the houses of the rich Turks and Jews, clubs, restaurants, cafes, and moving-picture theatres. At night, when these places are blazing with electric lights, the curving water-front is as bright as Broadway--but Broadway with one-half of the street in darkness. On the dark side of the street, to the quay, are moored hundreds of sailing vessels. Except that they are painted and gilded differently, they look like sisters.

They are fat, squat sisters with the lines of half a cantaloupe. Each has a single mast and a lateen-sail, like the Italian felucca and the sailing boats of the Nile. When they are moored to the quay and the sail is furled, each yard-arm, in a graceful, sweeping curve, slants downward. Against the sky, in wonderful confusion, they follow the edge of the half-moon; the masts a forest of dead tree trunks, the slanting yards giant quill pens dipping into an ink-well. Their hulls are rich in gilding and in colors--green, red, pink, and blue. At night the electric signs of a moving-picture palace on the opposite side of the street illuminate them from bow to stern. It is one of those bizarre contrasts you find in the Near East. On one side of the quay a perfectly modern hotel, on the other a boat unloading fish, and in the street itself, with French automobiles and trolley-cars, men who still are beasts of burden, who know no other way of carrying a bale or a box than upon their shoulders. In Salonika even the trolley-car is not without its contrast. One of our "Jim Crow" street-cars would puzzle a Turk. He would not understand why we separate the white and the black man. But his own street-car is also subdivided. In each there are four seats that can be hidden by a curtain. They are for the women of his harem.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "On one side of the quay, a moving-picture palace, ... on the other a boat unloading fish."]

From the water-front Salonika climbs steadily up-hill to the row of hills that form her third and last line of defense. On the hill upon which the city stands are the walls and citadel built in the fifteenth century by the Turks, and in which, when the city was invaded, the inhabitants sought refuge. In aspect it is mediaeval; the rest of the city is modern and Turkish. The streets are very narrow; in many the second stories overhang them and almost touch, and against the skyline rise many minarets. But the Turks do not predominate. They have their quarter, and so, too, have the French and the Jews. In numbers the Jews exceed all the others. They form fifty-six per cent of a population composed of Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Egyptians, French, and Italians. The Jews came to Salonika the year America was discovered. To avoid the Inquisition they fled from Spain and Portugal and brought their language with them; and after five hundred years it still obtains.

It has been called the Esperanto of the Salonikans. For the small shopkeeper, the cabman, the waiter, it is the common tongue. In such an environment it sounds most curious. When, in a Turkish restaurant, you order a dinner in the same words you last used in Vera Cruz, and the dinner arrives, it seems uncanny. But, in Salonika, the language most generally spoken is French. Among so many different races they found, if they hoped to talk business--and a Greek, an Armenian, and a Jew are not averse to talking business--a common tongue was necessary. So, all those who are educated, even most sketchily, speak French. The greater number of newspapers are in French; and notices, advertis.e.m.e.nts, and official announcements are printed in that language. It makes life in Salonika difficult. When a man attacks you in Turkish, Yiddish, or Greek, and you cannot understand him, there is some excuse, but when he instantly renews the attack in both French and Spanish, it is disheartening. It makes you regret that when you were in college the only foreign language you studied was football signals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Outside the Citadel, which is mediaeval, Salonika is modern and Turkish.]

At any time, without the added presence of 100,000 Greeks and 170,000 French and English, Salonika appears overpopulated. This is partly because the streets are narrow and because in the streets everybody gathers to talk, eat, and trade. As in all Turkish cities, nearly every shop is an "open shop." The counter is where the window ought to be, and opens directly upon the sidewalk. A man does not enter the door of a shop, he stands on the sidewalk, which is only thirty-six inches wide, and makes his purchase through the window. This causes a crowd to collect. Partly because the man is blocking the sidewalk, but chiefly because there is a chance that something may be bought and paid for.

In normal times, if Salonika is ever normal, she has a population of 120,000, and every one of those 120,000 is personally interested in any one else who engages, or may be about to engage, in a money transaction. In New York, if a horse falls down there is at once an audience of a dozen persons; in Salonika the downfall of a horse is n.o.body's business, but a copper coin changing hands is everybody's.

Of this local characteristic, John T. McCutcheon and I made a careful study; and the result of our investigations produced certain statistics.

If in Salonika you buy a newspaper from a news-boy, of the persons pa.s.sing, two will stop; if at an open shop you buy a package of cigarettes, five people will look over your shoulder; if you pay your cab-driver his fare, you block the sidewalk; and if you try to change a hundred-franc note, you cause a riot. In each block there are nearly a half dozen money-changers; they sit in little shops as narrow as a doorway, and in front of them is a show-case filled with all the moneys of the world. It is not alone the sight of your hundred-franc note that enchants the crowd. That collects the crowd; but what holds the crowd is that it knows there are twenty different kinds of money, all current in Salonika, into which your note can be changed. And they know the money-changer knows that and that you do not. So each man advises you.

Not because he does not want to see you cheated--between you and the money-changer he is neutral--but because he can no more keep out of a money deal than can a fly pa.s.s a sugar-bowl.

The men on the outskirts of the crowd ask: "What does he offer?"

The lucky ones in the front-row seats call back: "A hundred and eighteen drachmas." The rear ranks shout with indignation. "It is robbery!" "It is because he changes his money in Venizelos Street." "He is paying the money-changer's rent." "In the Jewish quarter they are giving nineteen."

"He is too lazy to walk two miles for a drachma." "Then let him go to the Greek, Papanasta.s.sion."