ATHENS UNDER THE TERROR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3042, 31 March 1917, Page 5

ATHENS UNDER THE TERROR

SLAUGHTER AND RAPINE I CONSTANTINE'S COMPLICITY (From a Correspondent of the "Moraini: Post.") Paris, December 22. The-following is a letter from one who had lived many years in Greeco and Turkey:— ' * , These are dark days in Athens. We Britishers are safe on board the ships in Piraeus harbour,' but it is a ventable reign of terror for the Liberal Party ashore, .-who'arc being hunted down, arrested, and man handled with a fury that shows no abating as the days go by. Numerous prominent Venizelists _ succeeded in escaping to the ships in the nick of time, but niany more were less fortunate. Beginning with Mayor Benachi and! General Coraka, a large number of higher public official*, University professors, lawyers, merohants, bankers, manufacturers, journalists, officers, and civilians are under arrest, charged with the set formula: "High, treason, leso-majeste, murder, shooting from windows, propagating sedition, harbouring traitors, possessing firearms," etc. The old ' gang of spies and informers who formed the King's "Special Safety Service"! in the balmy days of the Skoul-oudia-Gounaris Cabinet have foregathered again, from the provinces, whither they had been scattered'by the Allies' Note of Juno 21, and aro once more at their dirty work. To be known as a Liberal is enough to bring these bloodhounds down upon any man, however inoffensive. During the first two days of the riots thousands of the so-called "Reservists," who had been, equipped! with Mannlichers and plenty of cartridges out of tlw Government armouries, proceeded, with tho toleration and even "the assistance of military and naval patrols, to attack' private dwelling houses, which had been marked, previously with a red cross; later, these operations' were extended,to many other houses a-s well. The attackers com-, raenced by firing a' number of'' volleys at the windows, then smashed in the doors, arresting and-brutally maltreating the inmates, and dragging them off to prison on the charge that- they' had fired upon the "ticops"_ from the windows'. It must be specially mentioned that in<iriost oases outraged patriotio feelings of the attackers compelled them to finish by looting each house attacked, and thus to-day thousands of citizens find themselves stripped of money, clothing', utensils, and! all portable goods By these high-mind-.ed patriots. Almost all hotels, from the palatial Grande, Bretagne 'to the humblo Bristol, • were fired upon and rausflokod by armed "Eeservists," led by officers. ' ' Amerloan Citizen's Adventure. A still more ominous feature of these Royalist proceedings during the first few days was tho killing in cold blood of dozens of the arrested persons without trial or hearing. For several nights after the first day residents in eastern and north-eastern outskirts of the city., especially in the' suburb of Goudi, Wit! single volleys fired at night in the adjoining fields. An American citizen of Greek origin, who was seized by "Eeservists" on tho' second day (December 2). outside his houso naar the Acropolis and hustled off. to. the infantry .barracks, after..being lightened of ;his pocket-book containing £140, was brought 'before_;a colonel, who ordered his guards (with a significant wink) to.take him off to the "Prefecture," But to the.man's dismay he found himself being marched off in the opposite direction, namely, towards Goudi. On "the way ho v was mocked openly by passing patrols, as well as by hie own guards, as going to swelkthe.ranks \pf tho "unknelletl, uneoffined, and:unsung," : and they had already passed the last.houses into the fields when a mounted .messenger galloped up with an'order to tho squad to bring the prisoner back to barracks, it having finally come to (the colonel's. ears that he was an American citizen. And at the barracks, after producing his passport, he was-released. Another revolting incident occurred at the headquarters of tho Military Commandant at Athens, whither all captives were Drought, in during the first days as they were arrested, and from.there distributed to the various prisons'.- AI priest stood with a huge knotty stick at the outer gate, and as the prisoners filed in. he swung this stick, bringing it down upon each man's head or shoulders with all his force!; one man, who was one of the five men seized in Venizelos'e house, fell dead under the blow. And all this un-' der the complacent eye of-the highest military authority in Athens. After four or five of tljese amenities the proceedings assumed outwardly a- more legal character. A set of Greek "Bloody Jeffries," Procureurs du Roi in every .sense of the word, specially selected for their fanatical hatred! of, Venizelos and the Entente,. whose (removal from Athens the Allied Ministers had vainly been demanding for weeks past, wsr© let loose upon the scene; !'• An Atrocious Case.' - j;/-1 may mention a peculiarly.atrocious case—tnat of a well-known Greek surgeon of Alexandria, Dr. Canollis, a Cretan by birth, who had done distinguished! field ambulance work in the Balkan wars and who had como back to Greece hi response to the mobilisation decree of September, 1916. Merely, the faot of his being a Cretan and a friend of Venizelos was enough for tha King's butchers. His'hQUse /Was first riddled with volleys, then was arrested and dragged off under'a storm of blows and kicks, in whiob he received a dangerous wound on the head, and had Both arms broken by bayonet and bullet wounds. He was kept in this suffering state, half insensible, for three whole days, until finally even the Procureur in charge of his case had to admit that there was not the slightest evidence against him and he was discharged, an . utter wreck. He was taken to a hospital for two days and then mercilessly turned out by order of the Director (who was a patriotic Royalist) "to complete his cure at home"! He was brought back almost naked to his home, which in tho meantime had been sacked and plundered by the "Reservists," who, in their "high-souled exaltation" (a choice expression used by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in defending them to foreign oritics) had carried off everything—money, - clothing, household utensils —down, to the baby's shoes 1 Many releases were also effected through bribery. Five of my acquaintances were released upon tho secret payment of sums varying from 300 to 800 drachmas (a drachma is equal to ■about tenpence). One family paid 2500 drachmas (£100) for its release. Theso cases I can vouch for absolutely, though I may not mention names. As the days go by it becomes clearer that thewhole official story of the widespread Venizelist plot.to seize Athens and dethrone or kill "the. King was a clumsy invention, deliberately fabricated and staged as a pretext for exterminating the Liberal Party at Athena and in the provinces. If you ask me who devised and carried out this monstrous fraud, I. should unhesitatingly name ex-President Gounaris, General Dousmanis, and ex-Mayor Mercouris, backed, of course, by the now, military cabal formed not lons ago and put un-

dor General Papoula's presidency. A part of this plot was the letter published in facsimile by the papers, addressed to General Coraka and signed "El K. Vonizelos," which was at firßt reported to havo been found in. the search in Venizelos's house; but when General Coraka stated that he hadnever received such a letter, the authorities admitted that it had been "seized upon the person of the bearer." It is now branded as a clever forgery, and known to havo been in the King's hands days before the riots. Leading Venizelists here have laid genuine letters of M. Vcnizelos before the investigating magistrate, dated the tame day or the days immediately after the date of the forged letter,. which give diametrically opposite advioe and instructions to. his party to that contained in the forgery. But these genuine letter? have been suppressed by ,the authorities, and not a word has been said about them in the Press. This whole fiendish conspiracy has been planned primarily, as I said above, _to crusli the Liberal Party, which includes almost the entire intellectual and enlightened section of the community, as well as the labouring and manufacturing classes. But its ulterior object, as\a corollary to this immediate one, is to suppross Constn tutional government' in Greece, and to establish a military autocracy headed by the King. How far the King is a tool in the hands of the military party I have no means of judging; I seb by the text of the Allies' ultimatum of the 14th that they express themselves ,as considering the army as having got beyond the control of the King. Bo that as it may, it is well known that the King has an inordinate sense of his own "Divine rights," and entered upon the unconstitutional path in February, 1915, with the declaration to M. .Venizeloß that for the country's oign policy ho considered himself, ""responsible to God" alone, and not te his people.