The Balkans A History Of

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him into exile, a scapegoat for the afflictions of his kingdom. Bavarian then gave place to Dane, yet the
afflictions continued. In 1882 King George had been nineteen years on the throne[1] without any happier
fortune than his predecessor's. It is true that the frontiers of the kingdom had been somewhat extended. Great
Britain had presented the new sovereign with the Ionian Islands as an inaugural gift, and the Berlin
Conference had recently added the province of Thessaly. Yet the major part of the Greek race still awaited
liberation from the Turkish yoke, and regarded the national kingdom, chronically incapacitated by the twin
plagues of brigandage and bankruptcy, with increasing disillusionment. The kingdom of Hellas seemed to
have failed in its mission altogether.
[Footnote 1: King George, like King Otto, was only seventeen years old when he received his crown.]
What was the explanation of this failure? It was that the very nature of the mission paralysed the state from
taking the steps essential to its accomplishment. The phenomenon has been, unhappily, only too familiar in
the Nearer East, and any one who travelled in the Balkans in 1882, or even so recently as 1912, must at once
have become aware of it.
Until a nation has completely vindicated its right to exist, it is hard for it to settle down and make its life worth
living. We nations of western Europe (before disaster fell upon us) had learnt to take our existence for
granted, and 'Politics' for us had come to mean an organized effort to improve the internal economy of our
community. But a foreigner who picked up a Greek newspaper would have found in it none of the matter with
which he was familiar in his own, no discussion of financial policy, economic development, or social
reconstruction. The news-columns would have been monopolized by foreign politics, and in the cafes he
would have heard the latest oscillation in the international balance of power canvassed with the same intense
and minute interest that Englishmen in a railway-carriage would have been devoting to Old Age Pensions,
National Health Insurance, or Land Valuation. He would have been amazed by a display of intimate
knowledge such as no British quidnunc could have mustered if he had happened to stumble across these
intricacies of international competition, and the conversation would always have terminated in the same
unanswered but inconscionable challenge to the future: 'When will the oppressed majority of our race escape
the Turkish yoke? If the Ottoman dominion is destroyed, what redistribution of its provinces will follow?
Shall we then achieve our national unity, or will our Balkan neighbours encroach upon the inheritance which
is justly ours?'
This preoccupation with events beyond the frontiers was not caused by any lack of vital problems within
them. The army was the most conspicuous object of public activity, but it was not an aggressive speculation,
or an investment of national profits deliberately calculated to bring in one day a larger return. It was a
necessity of life, and its efficiency was barely maintained out of the national poverty. In fact, it was almost the
only public utility with which the nation could afford to provide itself, and the traveller from Great Britain
would have been amazed again at the miserable state of all reproductive public works. The railways were few
and far between, their routes roundabout, and their rolling-stock scanty, so that trains were both rare and slow.
Wheel-roads were no commoner a feature in Greece than railways are here, and such stretches as had been
constructed had often never come into use, because they had just failed to reach their goal or were still waiting
for their bridges, so that they were simply falling into decay and converting the outlay of capital upon them
into a dead loss. The Peiraeus was the only port in the country where steamers could come alongside a quay,
and discharge their cargoes directly on shore. Elsewhere, the vessel must anchor many cables' lengths out, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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