United States or Palau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Turkish troops had behaved well in the town, and never entered a private house. The Greeks had shown themselves as conquerors bent on pillage, and behaved with cruelty and violence. Colonel Condoulis did not even pretend to be out for anything but wholesale annexation. He showed on a map frontiers which should include even Tepeleni. I exclaimed, horrified: "But that is half Albania!"
We were trotted off to the house of an old Moslem, who also replied obediently. What else could the poor man do? An unarmed population faced with a big army is helpless. Many an English village would declare itself Choctaw if five thousand armed men bade it do so or be extirpated. We lunched with Condoulis, and learnt that the Greeks were as anxious to fight the Bulgars as were the Serbs.
Condoulis did not deny it. He merely said: "There is a French proverb which says appetite comes with eating. We have eaten; now we must eat more and more." I replied: "Monsieur, those that eat too much get bellyache." Which annoyed him. I have met few things more repulsive than a military man bent on conquest, for lust of conquest brings a man lower than the beasts. The beasts eat for hunger.
These "Christian" conquerors were a hundredfold worse. They showed their devilry by arranging a meeting that should cause Mr. Nevinson to write to his paper that Koritza wished to be Greek. The arrival of a well-known journalist was a chance to be exploited. Unluckily for Condoulis, we were not in the Balkans for the first time. The visit arranged for us at the Bishop's therefore missed fire.
We arrived at Koritza on June 30th and found it "in a state of great tension." "Persons afraid of arrest. A sort of silent terror in the air. Great Greek propaganda going on, and Greek troops everywhere. People called on us and said many wished to come, but dared not. They prayed us to save Koritza. Called on the Commandant, Colonel Condoulis, to whom Mr. Nevinson had an introduction."
Condoulis wished to eat for sheer greed. May the day come when such men will be looked On as mad dogs to be destroyed painlessly before they have time to inflict misery upon peoples. What with the Serbs at Ochrida and tijle Greeks at Kctitza, I began to regret that I had ever wished to send the Turk from Europe. While he was there, there was yet hope.
Word Of The Day